


Forever and Always

by talonyth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, each chapter a new au!, like in a kinder surprise!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-08 03:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1925097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talonyth/pseuds/talonyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You swear it's forever but how long is forever? A life time? Two? Maybe ten? Is it infinite? Will we forget each other? What about never meeting each other? What about killing each other? Dying for the other? Will we live through all that? Will we find each other every time? </p><p>Will we be forever?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forever Is Too Short

The first time they meet is very simple. Neighbours in a tiny village of 100 people, maybe even less, but life is fairly enjoyable. They have always been living next to each other, both from farmer families that got along a little too well, seeming like one big family instead of two seperate ones.

They spend every day together, they always have. Shouyou Hinata and Tobio Kageyama - although these are not their names yet but many, many, many years after - are inseparable and they both agree it will always be like this.

On a hot night, stars and moon shine so brightly that it seems like daylight, the two of them laze around on a tree, Hinata spread on the big and thick branch, Kageyama sitting upright with feet dangling.

"You are gonna fall," Kageyama says. He meddles around with a piece of cloth, sewing it into what Hinata thinks might be a dress for his mother. He is annoyingly good at everything he does, he thinks, clutching onto the shirt that has also been made by Kageyama a while ago.

"Nah, 's not gonna happen," Hinata replies and stretches out his hand to the sky. The stars look like they could be touched but he knows he can't. He already tried before and it didn't work. Kageyama laughed at him and said he'd have to grow taller to touch them. But he can't touch them either, even though he is taller. What a liar.

"Hey, d'you think we'll be stars when we die? Ma said we turn to stars," he asks Kageyama absent-mindedly. Hinata can hear him breathing, he listens closely when Kageyama is working. He is so concentrated and it's pleasant to watch. And to listen to. Anything is, with Kageyama even if he can be stingy sometimes, too.

"Dunno," Kageyama replies, his eyes still cast on the needle he guides almost too smoothly through the rough fabric. His hands used to be covered in cuts and bruises, Hinata remembers, way back when they were tiny children because he sucked at it. But he learns fast. Too fast. It's bothersome because his mother keeps telling him to be more like Kageyama but he isn't that good at things. At least he is great at farmwork, he figures.

Surprisingly, Kageyama stops working and looks up to the sky before he keeps talking, "But it would be nice if that'd be the case. Y'know, since you could watch over those you leave behind if you were a star."

"Yeah, but only at night," he replies and sits up hastily as he has gotten an idea. Kageyama yelps and glares at him.

"I don't care if you fall but if you make me fall with you, I'll kill you myself if you don't die from the fall."

"'S not gonna happen because you'd die too, then. Then we'd be stars together," he says excitedly.

Kageyama raises an eyebrow and looks back up to the sky again. Hinata is jealous, only a little, because he thinks that Kageyama is good at anything - even in terms of looks. It's not fair, they grew up together, spent every day together, but they are still so different. Yet somehow he is sure it would be boring otherwise.

"Do you believe in it?"  
Kageyama's voice sounds distant and Hinata wonders why he would suddenly be like this.

"In what?"

"That we'll be stars together."

Kageyama doesn't look at him but still gazes at the stars and even though they've always been together, Hinata still finds it difficult to tell what he thinks sometimes.

"Sure. You'n me, me'n you, we're always together."

Now Kageyama lowers his head and faces Hinata and there is something in his face he hasn't seen before. Never ever before, and that's much.

"Will you promise?"

There is all reason for Hinata to feel uneasy, about Kageyama's sudden serious behaviour, about how he notices his fingers tremble a little even though he always nicknamed him as Steady Hands, about how Kageyama suddenly sounds unsure whether 'always together' is an honest declaration.

But Hinata doesn't think of that and grins broadly instead. He snatches the needle out of Kageyama's hand, faster than the other is able to react, and holds it up.

"Let's make an oath, then," he proposes and pricks his left pinky finger with the needle. It doesn't hurt at all although it starts bleeding a little. He holds it out to Kageyama and smiles.

"It's not a proper promise without a blood oath," he says and flicks the needle back into Kageyama's hand who catches it skillfully.

"Isn't that just superstition?" Kageyama replies but mimics Hinata's action from before, stinging his right pinky finger and grimacing. Kageyama's a little more sensitive to pain than him, Hinata noticed over the years. And more prone to get bruised and wounded, too.

"If you believe in it, it's not. If you believe we'll be stars one day, then you can also trust in a blood oath," he exclaims and hooks his pinky finger into Kageyama's, curling around it tightly. It is reciprocated and the two of them look at each other in silence for a little while before Hinata starts talking again.

"I promise we'll be together forever. As stars or as whatever we become or will be, I'll be there with you. It will be the two of us, forever."

Hinata thought before that it would be more difficult to find the right words but he said them without thinking about then twice. He knows Kageyama is unsure of everything around him. He has never been well liked by the other kids their age while Hinata is friends with most of them. That is the one thing he is better at than Kageyama. And that is the one thing Kageyama worries about the most. At the same time, Hinata sometimes - barely ever, he says, but actually it keeps him awake quite often - is worried that Kageyama might leave his side. For whatever reason, work maybe. Or a wife, maybe. And his own family, then, maybe. Not having time to hang out like this anymore, maybe. Something like that. He doesn't plan on ever telling him, though. Hinata knows Kageyama would just tell him how stupid he is.

"I promise you the same. No matter how hard it will be, I will find you anywhere. It'll be the two of us. Forever."

His voice is wavering but maybe he is just trying not be weak and cry. Hinata wants to tease him about it but another word slips out of his mouth, at the same time as out of Kageyama's.

"Forever," they say in unison and smile at each other, locking their fingers so tightly that it starts hurting.

A week later, Kageyama has fallen sick. He can't come out and his mother said he should rather not come and visit. Hinata sits under Kageyama's window, outside and tells him about the weather and the flowers, about the very few breezes and about how two of their sheep ran away but he managed to catch them. He can hear Kageyama laugh about it, how he should take more care or they'll lose their sheep and how he'll show him how to keep the sheep in track once he's healthy again, asking him to tell him more about what he misses out.

Hinata stays and talks until his throat goes dry and he notices that Kageyama doesn't reply anymore. He hears him breathing heavily, probably fallen asleep but he can't see his face. Thick curtains Kageyama sewed himself hang over his window and Hinata feels his legs give in as he tries to get up because he knows - he feels - that despite Kageyama sounding fine, pretending to be fine, he is not fine at all.

Forever suddenly seems a lot too short, he thinks another week later, as he looks at the simple grave of the most important person he has ever met in his life, draping poppies over it with blurry vision. It isn't night yet, there are no stars to be seen but he prays and hopes that he is up there by the time night falls, that he will be able to find him eventually in the endless ocean of twinkling lights at the sky. As a star or as whatever they become once they die, he wants to be there, with him.

Because forever is supposed to be longer than this. And forever is what Hinata and Kageyama promised to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh i can't believe [fish](http://talk-to-the-fish.tumblr.com) drew an [accompanying piece for this chapter](http://talk-to-the-fish.tumblr.com/post/92322406916/no-matter-how-hard-it-will-be-i-will-find-you), showing hinata and kageyama in their tiny farmer boy outfits in a very lovely composition which still makes me cry a little. i love her art so i feel very honoured that she took her time to draw it! please check it out! 
> 
> also have [this super beautiful artwork](https://twitter.com/anfu_x/status/570257000380170241) of hinata by [lovely anfu](https://twitter.com/anfu_x) to go along with the end of this chapter!


	2. Forever means there is a next time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In their second meeting, Kageyama is a prince and Hinata is a knight, it sounds like the start of a fairy tale - but it turns out to be anything but that.

The second time they meet, they don't know each other from birth on as the last time. Hinata is just a commoner and Kageyama a prince, seemingly not in reach for someone such as Hinata. 

But the first time he sees the prince at a ceremony, he feels like he has known him forever. As if he has met him before when it has really been the first time he had ever seen him. Until then, Hinata didn't even know there was a prince at all. Now he sees him, and he looks uncomfortable standing there on the tribune alongside his parents and Hinata means to call out to him as if they are friends, inseparable from one another but his mother pulls his arm and turns him away before he can. It is the first time, and for a while, the last time he sees Kageyama. 

That encounter brings Hinata to dream of becoming a Royal Guard so he can talk to Kageyama, maybe even befriend him so he won't look as lonely anymore. When he tells his parents, they laugh at him and tell him to dream of things in his reach. He doesn't give up on it despite that. 

Years later, he stands in the royal court, his instructor showing him the way to the knight's dormitory. Hinata doesn't remember how many hours, days and weeks of pain he has endured for this to happen but his dream is tangible now, it is so much within his reach that his heart starts pounding with every step further he takes into the palace. He can't explain why but it feels like the satisfaction of keeping a promise that he is here right now - even though he never established one with the prince. Just mentally, perhaps but that doesn't really count, he thinks. There are a few promises he would make if he were to meet him though and the thought of that excites him. 

He thinks of his mother's words who said that such a dream is good and sweet but that he will end up disappointed. "Because the prince has no idea you exist, my son," she said. It sounds a little like one of the fairy tales his father used to read to him, he notices. But if he has managed to come as far as to be trained to be a Royal Guard, there is a chance he might also get to talk to the prince eventually. 

Hinata has a question burning on his lips but forgets it as soon as they go out into the garden. There he is. He sits in the shadow of a large tree Hinata doesn't know the name of because that sort of knowledge is not his forte. The prince is silently reading a book, focused on its content. Those working at the palace pass him by as if he's air - they completely ignore him sitting there, no one greeting him, no one even as much as looking at him. Hinata feels alienated by this sight. 

He remembers everyone making a big fuss over him years ago when he was still young, that ceremony had been so loud, even a little too loud for Hinata himself. He remembers the prince's tiny hands clenching onto the hem of his robe made out of silk. He looked so out of place, as if he didn't want to be there, as if he wanted people to look away from him already.

And now they do. And he looks even lonelier than before, Hinata thinks. Perhaps he doesn't want anyone to talk to him. Perhaps he ordered them not to. But they look like they simply go out of his way. It makes him feel a little sick so he opens his mouth to ask. 

"That's the prince over there," he says, trying to sound as if he just noticed. His instructor stops walking and follows Hinata's gaze. 

"Ah, yes. It would be wise to keep away from him."

Hinata stares at the prince, still reading his book and occasionally turning a page and wonders about his instructor's statement.

"Because he is the prince?" he asks innocently. Perhaps it is just the difference of status. Nothing else. 

"No," his instructor says and he sounds like he is talking about the most trivial thing, "because he is just a halfbreed. You want to serve the Royal Guards, do you not? Then do not pay that child any mind. He does not need to be protected for that he is only half worth his siblings."

Hinata thinks about the years he spent training. Years he had always thought that the palace is where he wants to work at. Years he will have wasted if he opens his mouth now. He is going to get himself thrown out. The words itch on his tongue and he feels them bursting out. 

"Half breed? Half worth? How is a person half the worth of another? Because of a thing they cannot change? You have always taught us knights are supposed to be respectful towards others. That we should take pride in what we do but be humble at the same time. That we do not look down upon others, whether they are friends or foes. Was that all a lie?"

He doesn't realize his voice is a pitch higher and more enraged than expected until he huffs when he stops talking. He isn't done yet - and frankly, he doesn't wield any regrets either. 

"You dare raising your voice at me?" his instructor hisses at him. "Do not meddle with problems that do not concern you, soldier. Do not think that simply because you stand here you cannot be thrown out again. You might be brave and fast but your talent does not make up for attitude. I will overlook this if you will apologize."

He builds himself up in front of Hinata, chest out and arms crossed and Hinata suddenly remembers how tall he is. But his eyes wander somewhere else entirely. If he keeps on talking now, if he doesn't apologize now, his dream will be over. The prince never noticed him after all. He took only a few 100 steps into the court before getting thrown out again. This is how it will end up being if he talks back.

But he feels like he takes the right decision when he raises his voice again. 

"I will not take my words back just because you do not want to hear them! You are a knight too, a Royal Guard, even! You should be the one watching your mouth because half breed or not, he is still part of the Royal family! At least more than you are! What gives you the right to judge someone's blood when you are not of the same blood yourself! You should be ashamed of yourself for acting so noble but being so low!"

"You insolent---"

Hinata is prepared to take a hit. He knows it will hurt, he knows they will take him away, four or five or maybe even six knights at once, throw him out. Possibly even worse, he might end up jailed. He didn't watch his words. Didn't watch his behaviour. A dream remains a dream, sometimes. 

"Halt."

Hinata turns around and sees the Queen standing right behind them. Her voice is cold and fierce, her eyes fixed on the two of them. Talk about bad luck. Or maybe worst luck. Hinata starts to fear he might lose his head after all. 

"Your Majesty---"

"I do not wish to hear your words. Stop your dispute at once."

Hinata is struck by the strength her voice emits and keeps quiet, averting his eyes. There is no way he can look. No way. 

"Soldier," she says and he freezes. He is done for. Absolutely done for. He not only yelled at his superior, he also did not bow in front of her, neither looked at her. He forgot absolutely anything he had been taught before coming here the second she spoke up. And now he is going to pay the price, he knows he will. 

"Do me the favour of accompanying me."

He looks up and her facial expression has not changed but the tone of her voice seems softer now. He nods briefly and walks towards her, dumbstruck that she talked to him but also that she didn't say anything against the harsh words his instructor spilled about her son. 

They simply leave him behind and Hinata swears he hears him cuss him but he cares little about that. He tries to catch a glimpse of the prince but he has left already. Perhaps he heard. Perhaps he just wanted a quieter place to read. It stays on Hinata's mind. 

The Queen stops and Hinata barely manages not to run into her. It is a very silent part of the castle, no one is passing by, and the Queen's face takes on a whole different expression than before. The corner's of her mouth sink, her eyes lowered and she sighs. She looks exhausted, Hinata thinks. Very beautiful, she always is on any kind of ceremony or event there is, but right now she really just looks overly exhausted. 

"I have heard your words, and I would like to ask you a favour if you will allow me," she says and Hinata wonders why she would speak as politely to him. She has no reason to, especially not when he had shown not be very respectful either. 

"Ah... yes, of course, whatever you ask of me, Your Majesty," he replies and he feels like anything he does and say is wrong - even to the way he breathes. He is so nervous that his heart hammers against his chest audibly. It even hurts a little if he focuses too much on it. 

"As you heard, my eldest son is not treated very well here at court. He, indeed, is only my son and not the King's. People have found out a few years ago and ever since he has not been treated like he belongs here."

Hinata listens and feels somehow uncomfortable. He wants to know but for the Queen to tell him all of this... it makes him feel like he has a responsibility now and he wants to shoulder it but isn't sure if he can. 

"His younger siblings are being taught not to approach him, as are all of those who work here. The King is very strict about this and while it pains me eternally, I cannot do a thing to help him. All I can do is to keep him here, this much the King allows. Like this, at least he has everything he needs. But I fear he is very, very lonely. He says he doesn't mind and that he is used to it yet I knows that he must suffer."

Hinata can't help but feel sad about what the Queen tells him. He can guess what she wants to ask of him and he doesn't mind. 

"Please, your words have moved me, please protect him. With the power I have, I will make you a Royal Guard, I want you to guard him. Please stay by his side if no one else will. I know it is much to ask, you are very young and this is your first day but---"

"I will do it!" he yells and belatedly realizes he just interrupted the Queen. The Queen, the second highest positioned person in the entire country. He takes a sharp breath in and turns scarlet. "I-I mean... I--- excuse my rudeness I---"

He looks up as he hears a light chuckle out her direction. "Do not worry. I cannot thank you enough. I am very grateful that you are willing to hear me out and fulfill my request."

Hinata breathes in and out before he speaks, wanting to sound strong but he thinks he might have failed as he yelps the next words. 

"I will do my best! I swear I will do anything to protect him from harm."

The Queen smiles - and Hinata is sure it is the single most beautiful thing he has seen in his entire life - and asks for his name. He introduces himself and she tells him to come to the ceremony room tomorrow. They part ways and Hinata's heart still pounds in his chest. This is a very different turn of events but it satisfies him more than anything else in his life ever did. 

A day later, he is knighted and promoted, he can call himself a Royal Guard now with focus on the eldest son. The King looks at him in disgust as do the siblings, none of them looking similar to the prince. The Queen stands beside them and suddenly she is the one looking out of place. He isn't there, the prince, decades later to be called Kageyama. 

Hinata decides to look for him, tell him he has someone who watches him now, who keeps harm out of his way and he is exuberant. He gets the chance to talk to him now, after years. 

He doesn't watch his step but neither does anyone else. The subordinates ignore him and his fellow knights, well, they have other things in mind as Hinata notices when they call out to him. 

"Got promoted already, huh?"

"But it doesn't mean much. You are as much a 'Royal Guard' as he is a 'Prince'. None."

"That's what you get for talking back."

Hinata listens but doesn't, really. Maybe, he thinks, this might be why the Queen seemed so distressed about asking him. She probably asked many but they all were treated like this. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't need to. He isn't as weak as they are. 

"Whatever you say, I have still officially been knighted and you have not so your words are useless," he says with a grin on his face and jumps into the garden, leaving them behind. 

He does wonder by now how it comes that he is so overly protective over a person he has never met before. Even if he feels familiar. He remembers his mother's words. What if he never notices? What if the prince is actually a bad person? But he isn't, he might be bitter but he can't be a bad person. It's nothing Hinata knows for sure but his feeling can't be that deceiving. 

Conveniently, he sits at the same spot as the day before. Right there, like yesterday, Kageyama sits there, his eyes cast down on the book he is reading with a concentrated expression. Hinata wonders if he should call out but perhaps that would startle him too much. So he approaches him slowly at first. 

But his voice doesn't play along with him. He practically yells his name at Kageyama and adds that he is his personal knight now. He looks up from his book, his eyebrow raised with obvious confusion written all over his face - and mistrust lingering in his eyes. His face is scary, so unlike back in the days when Hinata had seen him the first time, when he looked more scared of everyone else. It seems as if he has been an outcast for much longer than Hinata thought. 

He doesn't reply though, looking down at his book again as if Hinata is just a small nuisance that disturbed his peace. 

Unreasonably, he feels angry at being ignored like this as if he hoped Kageyama would smile at him and be happy that he finally has someone to talk to. What a dream, indeed. And while Hinata swore to himself that he would never burst out in anger again, spilling words he might not need to say at that very moment he does. Keeping his feelings under control is definitely not his strong point either. 

"You could at least be a little happy, you know!? I've been dying to talk to you!"

Oh no. Done for. Done for. He is done for. For the second time, in a span of only two days, Hinata messes up. The first time was still okay but he doubts he'll have the same amount of luck again. He lifts his arms up reflexively as Kageyama moves and starts muttering. 

"I--- I---"

"Leave me alone. I don't need your protection nor a knight of my own," the prince interrupts him and Hinata is mildly surprised at the tone of his voice. He thought it would be cold and distant but it sound just oddly quiet. But pleasant. He wishes he could show his mother that he managed to make the prince talk to him after all. 

More than anything though, he feels something pricking at his heart. He doesn't seem to think much of himself either. No one else does. So why should he? It makes Hinata sad. And angry, somehow. 

"Why? You deserve a knight just as much as your siblings do. You are worth just as much as them. Even if they get ten knights and you have only me, I'll make up for their strength. I'll do anything."

Kageyama doesn't reply. He doesn't even look up. He gets up, closes the book and turns away from Hinata, walking back into the castle, gripping the back of the book a little too hard. 

Hinata gulps hard but follows. He has to. There is no way he will neglect his duty. Neglect his dream. Not after he has come so far. 

He tries to come up with something to stay but he keeps silent until Kageyama enters a room, apparently his own, and turns the lock. Hinata presses his lips together and wrinkles his eyebrows. What a sour person. But he can figure it's because of what happened. Now he's not alone anymore, though. 

"Hey, you, I know you can hear me! I know how everyone treats you here but I am not the same! I am definitely going to hold onto my duty. I will protect you of any harm! I swore I would, for as long as I live! So no matter how much you will try to shut me out, I will be there!"

There is no reply, as expected and after Hinata's breath calms down and his heart stops hurting, he turns on his heels and leaves, hoping that on another day he might tell him that face to face.

So he waits one day, two days, an entire week. Each day the harrassment by the others gets worse. It starts with them trying to bully him through words but Hinata doesn't really mind. He can let them talk. They are just jealous. 

It continues with his clothes being thrown out by his roommates. Even though he is a Royal Guard now, he still is in training after all so he needs to stay at the knight's dormitory. It starts getting stressful after the third day that his clothes get messed up in the mud outside and he doesn't have anything to wear because everything needs to dry. By the fifth day, he realizes his clothes will never go dry at this point because they keep getting knocked on the floor. 

At training, Hinata is willfully injured by the others. He is luckily fast enough to avoid them mostly but by the end of the week, his entire body is covered in cratches and bruises worth an entire month and as he tends his wounds, he wonders if Kageyama has to suffer the same treatment. It isn't a reason for him to give up. 

He passes by Kageyama's room every day, he knocks at the door but there is never a response. Maybe he isn't even in there. Hinata runs to the large tree, the first day and second and third but Kageyama is never there. Perhaps he found another place to sit and read. But after looking in the entire castle, he decides to wait for fate to decide when they meet again. 

Approximately two weeks later, Hinata comes back to his room in the evening and finds nothing but ash all over his bed and table. His clothes, the little belongings, anything he brought with him from home, it has all been burnt. The stench is still lingering in the entire room. He opens the window wide, takes the blanket off his bed and shakes it out, the wind taking most of the ashes away. He hangs it out and leans over it to look out of the window. 

The sky is incredibly clear, the breeze is pleasant. It doesn't seem like such a bad day, he thinks, and decides to take a stroll in the garden. There isn't much more he can do. For all he knows, there isn't much his roommates can still destroy either so there is nothing to worry about.

Walking down the stairs to the backdoor of the castle, he meets no one. As if everyone just suddenly disappeared. Perhaps it is good like this. Hinata doesn't know if he'd be able to talk to anyone. 

He doesn't know the garden well, he never took his time to look around and at night it seems like a waste to do so but the moon and the stars, they shine down so brightly that the flowers look prettier than they probably would in broad daylight. There are maybe two or three types of flowers he recognizes, roses and tulips and... poppies. 

Hinata doesn't like poppies. They somehow make him feel uneasy, heavy - and sad. They look lively, tinted in red but Hinata doesn't feel any of the vigor they apparently instill in others. He feels like crying when he sees them so he wants to pass by fast but can't when he catches a glimpse of someone sprawled out in the middle of the flowers. 

A step, two steps closer he recognizes a dark garment, pale skin and long fingers, all belonging to Kageyama. He wants to tear him out of the flowerbed because the poppies, the bright stars and Kageyama in the middle of it - it all makes him feel uneasier and more uncomfortable than his burnt belongings do. 

He doesn't think much when he approaches Kageyama with big and stormy steps, grabs his collar and heaves him up to sit up straightly. The same long fingers with pale, pale skin he observed before curl around his wrists and try to pull him away while looking at his face in both surprise as in anger. 

"What are you doing!? Let go of me!"

Kageyama tears at his wrists and Hinata realizes - too late for now - that something just needed to make sure he would react at all. It is not like he could have known what he was doing. Perhaps just sleeping or lazying around, nothing bad. But the feeling that creeps up Hinata's spine is terrifying. He lets go of Kageyama and slumps down next him, unable to explain what happened. 

"I... are you feeling fine?"

His voice is soft, almost trembling and he stares at Kageyama's face. He looks angry, almost scary but more than anything, he looks confused as he fixes his collar.

"Yes, I am, and if this is all you wanted to ask me then you have quite ill manners."

Ill manners... perhaps that is a little problem. He has found living amongst nobles to be stressful because he needed to watch every single step. He doesn't like it very much, and it really isn't much like him. He wishes sometimes he could go back to swear sometimes, or talk without worrying how to express himself properly. It's difficult, among many other things that make the life as a knight not as pleasant as he thought it would be. 

"I---yes, I apologize. I was concerned you were feeling sick."

"If I did, I am certain that shaking me awake would not have helped me."

They stare at each other for a second and Hinata sees something he hasn't seen in Kageyama's eyes before. He seems alive now, and definitely not lonely. He suppresses a grin. 

"Please excuse my rudeness. I did not think before acting."

"You don't really like thinking in general, do you? You get into trouble quite a lot."

Hinata blinks and realizes Kageyama has started talking... more leisurely than before. Less formal, somewhat. He shouldn't be happy about it. It could have been a genuine slip. Or perhaps he has realized that Hinata might be, in his eyes, too stupid to understand formal words. Or perhaps---

"Do I?" he asks and he can't think of an instance in his life at the palace in which he hasn't caused trouble. Or has been involved in trouble, at least. He is the latest scapegoat for anything so he isn't very surprised that even Kageyama knows by now. Whatever happens, everyone is sure to blame him. He can suck it up, he's a Royal Guard now after all. Lousy cowards.

"Weren't you the one fighting with one of the instructors a few weeks ago? I was quite surprised, not many take that guy on."

"Do you know him?"

"He used to teach me when I was younger," Kageyama replies and his gaze becomes distant. Lonely again. Hinata wonders if he knows what they fought about back then but he doesn't want to bring it up now. 

"I see. I apologize for disturbing you in such way. I..."

Should get going. Should leave. Should go back to my room. Should stay right here. The latter one sounds pleasant enough but he knows Kageyama avoided him the last weeks too. 

"What are you doing out here at this hour?" Kageyama asks and changes posture to sit more comfortably. The poppies contrast his black vestment well and it almost looks like a picture come to life. Hinata contemplates if telling him would do any good. 

"I have not been able to fall asleep so I thought that walking around a little would tire me out."

"You had training today. You should have been plenty tired."

"But not enough."

"Is that so? You sound like you have a lot of energy," he says and the expression on his face softens as if he starts relaxing while talking. Hinata definitely can't tell him that he is being bullied by his roommates because of him. It's fine anyhow. They are just jealous. 

"I have grown up in the countryside, energy is something we are born with," Hinata replies with a grin on his face and guilt trips him as he thinks that some of the clothes he owned were made by his mother just for living at the palace. He thinks of home and he misses it. Terribly. 

Kageyama crosses his legs and pensively looks up to the sky. Hinata decides to follow his gaze and he can tell that the stars are aligned in a certain way, that there something such as constellations with names but stargazing has always been a way to calm him, not to make him think. 

"It sounds nice, rural life and such. I wish I could experience it," Kageyama suddenly says. Hinata doesn't know whether to laugh or try and be honest with him. 

"It's not really that great, y'know? It's a lot of work and neighbours and stressful. ...Though it feels warm, too," he says chuckling. Hinata sets to clear his throat and apologize for slipping back into his original way of speaking but Kageyama is faster. 

"It still sounds nice. We all long to have what we cannot reach, I guess. You probably longed to be here to get away from the countryside, right?"

It's odd. His questions are so genuine, almost innocent and Hinata wonders how anyone could mistreat him. Sure, he seems a little short tempered if you rub him the wrong way but he remembers the King's face, his siblings' faces when he became a Royal Guard. Downright disgusted someone would want to deal with Kageyama. Vile people. Hinata feels angry again but he doesn't show it. He tries not to. 

"Not really. My life was good there. My parents have a small business that is going fairly well, too."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because of you" is probably not an answer he could give. None he should give. He hates to lie but what would Kageyama think? Suddenly, his motivation sounds silly, even to himself. He starts to understand why his parents laughed at him when he voiced what sort of dream he had. If Kageyama were to ask why because of him, Hinata realizes he wouldn't be able to reply. He doesn't know. 

"Hey, do you... have you ever felt like someone you don't even know feels like home?"

"Hmm."

Kageyama's eyes wander around. Hinata expected him to be more surprised about the question but he seems to be genuinely thinking about a reply to give. What a weird guy. 

"I don't really know what home feels like," he replies eventually and Hinata bites his lower lip. Right. He never felt like he was belonging here, he remembers that even in the times where no one knew he was only the Queen's child, even then, at that ceremony, he looked so misplaced. Saying he wants to live in rural areas rather than in a palace, keeping away from anyone - running and locking himself up. 

"I shouldn't have asked," Hinata says quietly. "It was a weird question anyway. Please forget about that, Your---"

"Don't call me that," Kageyama hisses and grits his teeth. Hinata supresses the urge of reaching out to him and nods instead. 

"Yes, please forgive me. I did not mean to---"

"And drop that formality. You already talked normally before. I'm not one of them anyway so you don't need to be polite like that. Makes me sick."

"Uh, yes. I understand."

"Good," Kageyama says and glances at Hinata. "And. Uh."

Hinata looks at him in confusion and can't think of another thing he might want to add. He is oddly colloquial, for a noble. Maybe he has read too many books because he doesn't seem to go outside much. He snorts and earns a glare but Kageyama seems to want to continue his speech. 

"I... Thank you."

Hinata wants to ask what for but he figures accepting it is easier on Kageyama than explaining. He feels warm now - his heart and his body, it feels like home. It definitely does. 

"For whatever you thank me, but you're welcome!" 

He beams at Kageyama and for a little while longer he stays with him and listens to him talk - Kageyama tells him about occasionally coming to the garden to stargaze, tells him about constellations that are easy to spot and Hinata loses track of the names but he feels like he can at least remember how they look like. He falls asleep somewhen in between the 124th and 136th constellation Kageyama whispers about sleepily as the breeze is still as pleasant as hours before.

A month, two months, four, six pass in which Hinata and Kageyama keep stargazing, even when the sky is cloudy. They sit in the garden and talk, speak to each other about anything and more. They banter and cuss each other, they even beat each other up once though only to show who of them would win if they were to be enemies. 

A month, two months, four, six pass in which Hinata keeps avoiding sleeping in his own room. Anywhere is fine, really. He bought new clothes but they quickly got stained from training, being tossed onto the floor unnecessarily and almost thoroughly stabbed with a wooden sword. His entire body hurts and he doesn't want to endure but he knows he can. In the evening, things are a lot better. 

He avoids telling Kageyama about this. He wants him to know but he knows Kageyama would feel responsible. It's fine like this, he thinks. Kageyama has suffered enough too. He looks happy now. He doesn't smile much but he always looks relaxed. It's worth the effort and the pain. 

When he tumbles back to his room one evening after looking for parts of his new wardrobe outside again with hurting bones from training, Hinata is sure that it's just a little longer until he can leave the dormitory. Just a little longer to endure. His body hurts but he knows nothing is broken. They never go as far. Because almost broken always hurts more. And longer. And it gives him no reason to go and have it checked. No broken bones, no treatment. No heavily bleeding wound, no treatment. Especially not for him. 

He leans against the wall and his vision goes blurry. He doesn't want to go to his room. He hates it. He hates them. Even if he would tell his superior, he wouldn't do anything. No one would. It makes him realize how terrible it must have been for Kageyama. Perhaps it still is. 

Hinata jolts when someone passes by. He freezes, sure that it is probably one of his roommates but it turns out to be Kageyama. Which is considerably worse. Hinata props himself against the wall and grins at him, crooked but it works. It needs to. He doesn't have to know. Just a little discomfort, it's fine, really.

"Hey, this is the first time we've met in the hallway!" he says and ignores that even laughing hurts. Has it always been this bad?

Kageyama doesn't say anything. He holds something in hands, Hinata can barely see what. It is too dark, his vision is clouded but he starts to think it might be one of his shirts. 

"You... what... what happened?"

"Nothing," Hinata laughs and almost starts believing his act, "Just got unlucky in training and fell pretty hard. It happens."

"Every week at least once? You looked pretty bad lately."

"I'm ditzy."

"You're lying."

Kageyama's voice pierces through him and he instantly feels guilty but there is no way he knows. No way he can guess. He just tries to make him confess. 

"Why should I lie to you abou---"

"Because it's my fault you are being treated like this," he interrupts and presses the words between his teeth. Hinata fears he is going to rip his shirt apart before he can give it back. It's probably a goner anyway. His nails dig into the fabric harshly and Hinata feels like they dig right into his heart. He didn't mean to lie. Not for a bad reason at least. 

"They are just jealous I do better than them, that I've been promoted and they haven't. Besides, I'm small. They've always made fun of me."

"They were your friends."

Hinata laughs, this time genuinely. "Friends? They've never been my friends."

"But---"

Hinata's expression changes within a second, glaring at Kageyama. He never needed to know. He wishes he could not let him know about all of this. Because Kageyama thinks a lot, especially about unnecessary things. Almost exclusively about those. 

"But what? Friends don't call you names. Friends don't scatter your clothes outside after it rains just so that you will get reprimanded for looking like shit when you gather. Friends don't burn your entire belongings and leave the ash on your bed and your table so that you can't breathe at night when you try to sleep. Friends don't deliberately hit you harder than they are allowed to, claiming you slipped so you got hurt more. Friends don't blame everything they mess up on you. Don't say they were my friends. Even if they might have been nice to me before I became your knight, it just means they never were my friends to begin with. And you were the one who showed me. It's a good thing."

"If you were never assigned to me you---"

"I would have never been able to fulfill my dream."

Kageyama stares at him in confusion. He doesn't have a single clue about what Hinata has done to get here but it's fine. Hinata doesn't regret. He remembers his younger self thinking that he wanted to be friends with that lonely looking prince high up there. It was a stupid dream now that he thinks about it. But he knows about flowers and trees and about stars now. Constellations far more than he ever expected knowing. 

"Do you remember when I asked you if you ever had someone who felt like home to you even though you never saw them before?"

Kageyama nods silently. He seems like he doesn't know what to say, what to retort. 

"For me, it was you. I saw you when I was younger. On an opening ceremony. My family had travelled here just for that. It was the first time I saw you. And it felt like I had found someone I lost a long time ago. Like I wanted to return to you. Home, somehow. Ever since, I never saw you again but I've always, always wanted to meet you. My mother kept laughing at me. She said it sounds like a fairy tale what I am planning to do, what I'd do if you'd never notice me and talk to me because you are a prince after all. I never cared. I just," he says and takes a deep breath. 

"I wanted to see you because you felt like home to me."

Hinata smiles and, frankly, he feels a lot easier now. He is probably going to laugh and that's fine. To be by his side, he promised that to the Queen yet not only because he wanted to do her a favour. Mainly because he felt like that was where he belonged. 

Kageyama wrinkles his eyebrows and he raises the cloth in his hands to his face. He doesn't say anything - he never does, usually because he lacks the words to - but Hinata can hear him trying to breathe evenly. It doesn't seem to be working well. 

He presses himself off the wall and staggers towards Kageyama, his arms slinging around Kageyama's body. 

"Tell me more about stars. You haven't told me half of what you know yet."

The reply comes ten minutes later, after Kageyama has calmed down. He insists to have a look at Hinata's body, to check if he is fine but Hinata doesn't want to hear about that. He tears him to the garden with his last power and flops onto the wet ground. His clothes are messed up anyway but realizes Kageyama's are not. The other doesn't seem to care though and lies down right beside him. He listens to his voice, and it sounds so, so pleasant - as home should sound like - and he feels like he is able to do anything if it is for Kageyama. 

He is on the verge of falling asleep at the sound of Kageyama's voice when he changes the subject. 

"I heard the sky looks prettier in the countryside," he says suddenly and Hinata turns his head around to look at him. He's on his back, staring up into the nightsky. 

"It's clearer," Hinata replies shortly with hoarse voice. He hasn't said anything for a while, idly listening to Kageyama ramble about constellations he couldn't recognize. There is a moment of silence until Hinata chuckles. "You should come with me when I go home."

"When will you?"

"Once I am out of training. Next month, or so."

Kageyama smiles, and it is so rare that it remains imprinted in Hinata's mind because his usual smiles are crooked or kind of scary, even, but this one, it is genuine and he seems to be looking forward to it. 

"Then take me with you. I want to see it."

"Maybe you'll see stars you haven't seen yet."

"That would be great," he says and chuckles. "But I highly doubt it."

"Aren't you being conceited? Not like you know everything."

They banter for a little longer and Hinata hopes he can keep his promise and take Kageyama with him. He knows what he wants to show him, where he wants to take him. Definitely not to the field of poppies by the waterfall down the road but there is a little mountain to climb and sweets to try out and maybe he could see if Kageyama was really as good at riding a horse as he bragged about days before. His body still hurts, the pain is vivid but it feels halved by the prospect of showing Kageyama what home feels like. 

He never does.

Death seeks Hinata not even a week after their promise. Out of nowhere someone has attacked them, attacked Kageyama but Hinata has managed to fend him off and kill him before he could do any damage. Or so he thought. His chest hurts, being stabbed hurts though it starts to numb by now. He doesn't know where the assassin came from and why he wanted to kill Kageyama of all people. His best guess is that the King wants him gone already but can't send him away because of the lovely, lovely Queen. Masking it as an assassination, Hinata thinks it is a rather stupid idea and wonders if dying makes you think about this sort of thing.

Kageyama sits next to him trembling, his long, long fingers are even paler than usually. "I need to go and get help," he says and he wants to get up but Hinata holds onto the silken fabric of his garment. 

"It's fine," he breathes though he barely gets any air to do so, "if you'd be gone and I die meanwhile, you'd bawl your eyes out."

Kageyama bites his lower lip in frustration and sinks back down. He is shaking, his body in tremor and Hinata feels like crying. He doesn't want to leave him alone. He wants to be there, a little longer. 

"Next time, I'll bring you to the waterfall," Hinata says because he can't think of anything else. He wanted to show Kageyama where he grew up but that's out of question now. Now.

"Swear that there will be a next time," Kageyama hisses and tries to suppress his tears. Of course. So does Hinata. 

"There will always be... I found you this time... so next time, too..."

"Forever?"

Hinata lifts his hand, he barely manages and links his pinky finger with Kageyama's and it feels like they did this before - years and years before, from a time Hinata can't even remember. 

"I'll protect you... forever... next time too..."

He feels Kageyama squeezing his finger, feeling tears dropping one after another on his hands before he closes his eyes, hoping that the next time, indeed, he will be able to show Kageyama home, that he endured enough in this lifetime to make it easier on himself and Kageyama in the next and that for all of what Kageyama might suffer now, the next time will be brighter. 

Because forever means there is a next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been messy as fuck and i swear to god it sounded nicer in my head than it actually was. i'd say the next chapter will not be all over the place as this once but i can't promise a thing. also i really wanted prince/knight kagehinas but this sort of. went out of bounds.


	3. Forever Unspoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sounds are a blessing. Sounds are Kageyama’s life. Sounds remain in his mind forever, imprinted. Except for Hinata’s.

The third time they meet they are brought together by someone else. 

Kageyama is a pianist, a prodigy or so they call him but he doesn't feel like that at all. He doesn't feel as if he is any different from other musicians who play an instrument and write their own symphonies. If anything, he thinks everyone is exaggerating. There are so many faults in his plays that it makes him cringe to glide his fingers over the pure-white keys of the piano sometimes. 

"You might want to try and work together with another instrument," his father tells him one day. Kageyama sits at the piano and keeps pressing the same key, over and over again. He is stuck. Doesn't know what to play. Doesn't know how it supposed to sound. Doesn't want to try playing one of his older works either. But playing with someone else.... it doesn't sound appealing. If anything, it will just disturb his concentration. 

"I am still surprised you chose the piano over all of the other instruments. You were fit to play any," his father continues. Kageyama remembers sitting on his lap when he was younger, trying out various instruments. His father, once a musician too but now a simple teacher, had urged him to learn how to play. Said he knew his son was talented enough. Talent. Kageyama lifts a second hand and adds another tone to the one he keeps playing repeatedly. He doesn't like that word. It makes all of his efforts seem like they are none. 

"I liked the sound of the piano the most," he replies. The two sounds don't go well together, he decides and moves his left hand further out. Perhaps like this. 

"Is that all? I have been wondering. All other children would have chosen something where they can play with their friends. A piano is not one of those instruments."

Kageyama feels somewhat scolded. He has heard this time and time again. Those two sounds don't work together either. This time he moves his right hand to the edge and adds his right pinky finger to play a third tone. Somehow it doesn't work out today. 

"Are you complaining? I thought you wanted me to play," he says, colder than he intended to. He is tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. 

"I do. And I am proud of you. It is just something that has been on my mind."

"I wanted to play the piano. Other instruments are nice but this is the one I would always choose over the others."

Kageyama doesn't know when his fingers started moving on their own. Somewhere in between his words he guesses. It feels a little better now. Sounds good for now. It is a basis at least. Perhaps two notes up the scale. 

He hears his father chuckle right behind him but he doesn't turn around, thinking about what his father said before. Playing alongside someone else... it sounds troublesome. And either way, he doesn't write down any notes. He plays as he feels and memorizes them, imprints them. They all resurface on their own. There is no way someone else could play with him. Even if they tried. It happened before once, his father told him to play with the other children. They couldn't keep up. There is no harmony between him and them. 

"I heard that child play the violin. I think your piano and his violin, they would sound brilliant together," his father utters while Kageyama keeps getting stuck at the same part again. Two notes up or two notes down? Perhaps even an entire octave higher, it sounds a little too dark right now. 

"I'm not interested," he replies shortly. He can't say he isn't intrigued; his father never gave him bad advice before and he trusts his judgment. He thinks of how he would introduce himself; of how he would play and watch the other struggle to follow. And drops the thought immediately. He tells himself he lost interest. The notes sound awry now. No, an octave higher is definitely a bad idea. 

"I will bring him along tomorrow."

Two of his fingers slip off the key and the sound it makes is awful. Gives him goosebumps all over. Meeting someone new, someone he doesn't know, someone he is supposed to play with. Someone he is supposed to talk to. As he listens to his father's footsteps leaving the room, he stares at the keys and wonders what he should say tomorrow. How to behave. How to react if it goes horribly wrong. 

The piano doesn't sound until a day later.

His father didn't bring him along after all; instead he forced him to go to the town's hall where he stares at the old piano. He needs to attune it, Kageyama knows by just looking at it. Doesn't even need to play a single key. 

His father is nowhere to be seen. His best guess is that he got side-tracked, maybe started talking to some townsfolk or something. It gives him a little time to get used to this old piece of wood. It's not even antique anymore - it's just rotten.

He grabs the chair and adjusts it, his fingers sliding over the keys to hear which ones sound flat and off. It's not as many as he expects, surprisingly. He closes his eyes and plays each key again, trying to memorize which ones to tune up. He gets lost in thoughts, somehow remembering a garden he has never been in, a field of poppies he had never laid in, staring at a vast ocean of twinkling stars he never looked at. Like memories they flood into his mind when he plays each key individually, no matter how askew they sound. 

Kageyama almost jumps out of his seat when a hand touches his shoulder, making an almost yelping noise, his fingers clenching onto the keys and releasing a horrid dissonance that makes his ears hurt. He lets go quickly, the sounds go silent at once and he turns around with gritted teeth. 

To find a face he doesn't know. He thought it would be his father, trying to pull a prank on him. It wouldn't have been the first time. Instead, he stares into the face of a young man he absolutely has no memory of. He supposes they are the same age although he is small in physique, making him look younger. 

His eyes are wide-open as if he had been the one scared but Kageyama can tell he also suppresses a laugh. 

"Who the hell are you," he hisses at the stranger and he hopes his heartbeat calms down soon because it drains every other sound around him. He is afraid he won't hear the other's name because of it, living in constant fear afterwards of not knowing how to address him but asking him would be rude by then. It would be a great basis for a relationship. 

There should have been a laugh, Kageyama guesses, but it sounds off. It is breathed, the grin stuck to the shorter man's face but it doesn't feel right. Kageyama is surprised when the other gets out a piece of paper and holds it out to him. Is this a joke? Because if it is, he bets good money on his father being the culprit. 

He takes it and quickly skims the few lines written on there. His name and his age, and a note that his father sent him here. All fine, Kageyama guesses but nothing he couldn't have told him. Maybe he is shy? But he definitely doesn't seem like it. Quite the opposite actually. He feels... annoyingly extroverted for Kageyama's tastes. Almost pushy.

"I see. Why this, though?" he asks and waves the sheet around. "You can talk to me just fine, I won't bite unless that's what Father told you I would do. I don't."

Hinata, how he is later going to be called, still decades away, just shakes his head and signals for him to keep reading by gesturing at the piece of paper Kageyama holds in hands. 

"That's all that's written on it," he says as he reads the same lines again. Name, age and the other note. There is nothing else. Hinata shuffles closer and looks at it, flinching with sudden realization. He looks up, eyes gone big again, and lifts his right hand to his chest, clenched fist and making a circular motion exactly twice. 

Kageyama is fairly confused. Is that some sort of sign? Nothing he has ever seen before. Perhaps it is some sort of secret type of language of the townsfolk he doesn't know of. Hinata chuckles, voicelessly, just air coming out of his nostrils. He taps Kageyama's arm once and gestures him to look at his face instead of his hands. 

He follows his instructions and watches Hinata's lips move but there is no voice coming out. His hands move along with his lips, so fast that Kageyama can barely follow; but two motions make him realize what Hinata wants to tell him.

One is Hinata's right hand imitating closing a lock as with a key on his throat - the other is Hinata's hand at his ear, fingers spread to sign a three, his index and middle finger curling slightly. 

"I am mute but I can hear."

He doesn't say it, of course he doesn't. He can't. Kageyama feels stupid for having said what he said before. 'You can talk to me just fine' is definitely not something he should have said. That explains why Hinata didn't call out to him before. He can't. Kageyama feels his heart stop for a moment.

Hinata smiles at him and repeats the motion from before, the circular one but this time, Kageyama focuses on his lips. 

"Sorry" is what they form silently. 

So that sort of sign means sorry. Kageyama doesn't really know what to say. He looks down onto the sheet he still holds in hands, messy handwriting all over it and back up to Hinata's face. He smiles and stretches a hand out to him. 

Now this is a gesture he knows, too. Kageyama blinks a few times and without thinking - it feels right, just as some sounds do, just as some songs he has composed felt good while playing without spending a thought on them - grabs Hinata's hand, introducing himself and muttering an apology for his rude words before. Hinata shakes his head and grins. 

Stretched out hand, his right thumb hitting near his right shoulder, Hinata's lips move again. 

"It's fine."

Kageyama knows it is impossible but he feels like he understands Hinata. He knows what he is saying even he has no voice. As he knows the sound of each and every single note on the major scales, he knows Hinata's silent voice. He understands even though he knows nothing of the sign language he uses. Kageyama squeezes Hinata's hand and lets go of it a second later.

He doesn't know why - he hasn't even heard Hinata play the violin yet - but he feels like his father might have been right; they would be brilliant together.

When Kageyama sits down and hears Hinata fumbling with his violin trying to attune it, the realization of why Hinata is actually here hits him. They are supposed to play together. His fingers press down a few keys again and he is reminded that some of the notes sound off yet the soft sounds made by the considerably old piano make Kageyama feel like home again. It eases his mind a little. 

It still doesn't answer his question of how. There are no scores he can give Hinata and while he is fairly known in the area, Kageyama doubts that Hinata has been to any of his performances before. Even if, the chances of him being able to play along are low. 

Each time he presses a key, he hears Hinata mimicking the note. Ah, yes. Attuning. Right. Still, on spot Hinata is able to tell which note is played and Kageyama has to admit he is amazed. At the velocity in which he processes the notes - but also at the warm sounds of his violin. 

Frankly, of the instruments he knows, the violin has always been the one Kageyama liked the least. It sounds too dominant in his ears, most of those playing it trying to show off rather than feel the sounds. Too cold, too shrill; the prospect of playing alongside a violin has not been exciting for Kageyama. 

Hinata's violin sounds like the sun if it were audible. Warm and pleasant, fiery if necessary. Kageyama thinks he might start to like violins a little more. He plays an octave, his fingers feel a little too sweaty, a little too slippery but he decides to pay it no mind. 

"I won't be able to give you any notes to play by," he says absent-mindedly. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Hinata repeating the sign for "fine" again and is surprised about his own adaptability to this sort of situation. He has never met anyone mute before, never been the only one talking in a conversation. Although this is a special sort of thing but Kageyama sometimes speaks so little that he forgets the sound of his own voice sometimes. Not that he needs to remember it as long as he can still memorize the sounds of a piano. 

Kageyama turns his head around and Hinata lowers the violin to speak with his hands again. He tries to focus but it goes far too quickly for Kageyama. He thinks he gets the idea behind it though. 

"You can't read notes anyway?" he asks, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding. Hinata nods, cheek pressed against his instrument, posture straighter than he imagined Hinata to be able to stand like. He doesn't look like a typical violinist; not like the ones Kageyama knows at least. He could have been a trumpetist, something loud. Though he isn't. Kageyama wonders why he thinks Hinata is noisy when he makes no noise at all. Perhaps it is his personality. Hasty and noisy. He would be if he could speak. 

"I see... well, how about I play a piece first and you listen. I'll make a break and you try to follow the second time I play it. Does this sound fine to you?"

Hinata nods again, a smile on his face, lifts the bow and positioning it onto the strings. A tiny, almost inaudible sound if not for Kageyama listening closely comes out and it makes his fingers shake in excitement. He takes a deep breath out as he turns around - and hears Hinata doing the same remembering that the right breathing is crucial for a violinist - and starts playing. 

It is a considerably easy piece, one he thought of years ago. He doesn't play it often at performances because it makes him feel melancholic. Again, he feels like he remembers things he has never experienced though it is certainly not the first nor last time it happens. The keys pressed feel like an anticipation of an event that never happens, perhaps a visit of something he never ends up seeing. His eyes are cast down but he doesn't watch his fingers move. He doesn't have to - they do on their own. Instead he ponders whether Hinata is listening. 

He is fairly surprised when he hears a violin playing along, Hinata's - whose else? - because there has been no break nor the time for Hinata to remember the parts or notes; or anything at all for that matter. Yet Kageyama doesn't stop playing, it would be a waste and he feels like his fingers move smoother than usually. They sound together, in perfect unison, even though they've never met each other before. Or have they never? 

By the time the piece is over and Kageyama's hands stop moving, he feels his heart hammering against his chest so hard that it hurts. The excitement is still tingling in his fingers and he turns his head around to look at Hinata. His posture still as before but his eyes are closed, his fingers holding the violin as if it is the most fragile thing in existence and Kageyama doesn't know how appropriate such a thought is, but it looks beautiful. Like a perfect sound, like a perfect symphony, that picture remains engraved in his mind.

"That was..."

Hinata gestures with one hand; but Kageyama reads the word from his lips instead. 

Amazing. 

From then on, Hinata and Kageyama practise together nearly every day, from broad daylight to the darkest night until they are thrown out of the town's hall. Every now and then, Kageyama has performances - alone but it doesn't quite feel right anymore. The sounds are the same as always but they sound so much fuller if Hinata plays along. As if they are supposed to sound together rather than alone.

Kageyama teaches Hinata how to read and write notes - on his request, saying he wants to share pieces with him he thought of and maybe combine two of theirs - and in exchange, Hinata teaches him the sign language he uses. He remembers Hinata being confused about this sort of deal. 

"What do you mean, I don't need to know? Even if you can hear me, I can't understand you fully if I don't know what you gesture," he replied back then after Hinata had signaled him it's fine if he doesn't use it - since he can hear him just fine. He still looked oddly bubbly and excited when he started showing Kageyama the most basic hand signs. 

He doesn't really consider himself good at it; too many hand signs are dependant on a certain expression you have to wield on your face - and some even mean different things if you don't watch out what your face does. Kageyama never thought he'd mind his own facial movements, partially not even aware what his face did sometimes until Hinata pointed out to him that gesturing sorry with a stern face might make it seem like he doesn't mean it. 

A whole year passes until Kageyama and Hinata both manage to acquire a performance together - and Kageyama starts laughing when he sees Hinata's face shortly before it starts. He is never calm, always hasty, always scurrying. He often seems like a squirrel, Kageyama thinks. But this type of nervousness he shows, hands sweating and clutching onto his violin, his face so stiff that Kageyama fears it might stay like this for good, his back straight but his posture still crooked - Kageyama has to try hard not to laugh, lowering his head and staring at the keys. It might be funny to him now but if he imagines that Hinata might mess up he feels fairly angry. 

"Calm down already, you idiot. Don't forget how to play," he whispers, turning his head around to see Hinata's reaction who turns his head to him so slowly, his eyes wide open but nodding furiously. When Kageyama turns back to look at the keys again he can't help but feel mildly bewildered - yet he knows that Hinata clicks as soon as he starts playing. 

And he does. The first note they play together brings back the feeling of unity in Kageyama's mind who lets out a deep breath and swears he hears Hinata doing the same at the same time - and he almost feels that not just their instruments are in perfect sync; their heartbeats are too, pounding in the same rhythm and keeping the piece lively they play together. Again, and lately he has been thinking that a lot while playing with Hinata, it feels like home. It makes him feel like this is the place he belongs to, surrounded by these exact sounds and by that specific person who looks more beautiful than anything else he has ever seen while concentrated.

He thinks it is a shame he can't look at Hinata while he plays. Feels like envy towards those sitting in the audience, being able to see. It shouldn't be like that. He should focus on the sounds as he always does. But he never got the picture of Hinata playing out of his mind. 

With each piece, Kageyama becomes more certain that there is something he cannot explain lingering in between him and Hinata. Aside from their passion for music and their understanding despite looking like they don't get along at all. Despite people saying they are an odd pair to be seen together. Unfitting. Incompatible. Mismatched. 

Certainly, from their looks and from their first impressions. Hinata is, despite not being able to speak, always bright. He shines and beams, his smiles are well-known already despite this being his first concert. The others don't know how pushy he can be sometimes, too much so. 

Kageyama contrasts him. He has never been much of a people's person, didn't like being surrounded by many and never really felt comfortable around strangers. He can't force himself to smile and even if he tries, it ends up looking scary and with ill intent. So he doesn't try, doesn't feel like it. What for? You'd sell youself better if you were a little friendlier, his father used to say. But that's not really what Kageyama is after. Fame never meant anything to him, not even now. He feels blessed he earns money by doing the one thing he loves above anything else but even if he weren't to do so, he'd still want to play. Lost in thoughts like this, the concert ends faster than Kageyama expected - and has him feel proud. 

Back at home, Hinata's hands move so fast, his lips in sync to the movements that Kageyama has severe difficulties following. He seems far too ecstatic after the concert.

A few months ago, Kageyama's father died. Unexpectedly. It still makes him feel a little lonely, his mother already gone for quite a while before. Like a whirlwind, two days after his father's death, Hinata stood at the door with all his things announcing he'd move in. Originally to take Kageyama's mind off of what happened but it seems like he simply decided to stay. 

And now Kageyama brews some tea for the two of them, staring at the water as if to speed up the process of heating it up. 

"Calm down, will you," he says, directed at Hinata who immediately stops moving - but sticks out his tongue instead. Kageyama turns up his nose at that, takes two large steps before Hinata can even think of running away and roughly tousles his hair. 

"Don't you stick your tongue out to me like that, or I'll remind you how you were almost throwing up because you were so nervous. Idiot," he hisses and lets go of Hinata's hair after the shorter man tries to slap it away. It still feels odd sometimes when he does this sort of thing. Anyone would yelp or screech. It feels weird not to hear anything although that doesn't make Hinata's reactions less intense. 

Hinata pouts and his hands flow like words. Surprisingly Kageyama catches immediately onto what Hinata is asking him. Memorizing most of Hinata's usual gestures seems to be successful.

"If I wasn't nervous back then? Not particularly. I'm used to it," he replies. The water still isn't hot enough. Doesn't make any sounds yet. Hinata's face relaxes and he looks somewhat bummed, a pout forming again. He wrinkles his eyebrows and his nose and Kageyama would laugh if not for Hinata's hands moving. 

"For me, it was exciting," he gestures and casts his eyes down. "It was the first time I gave a concert. I'm not good enough by myself but I've always wanted to."

Kageyama sighs and he can't stop being surprised about himself being able to decipher Hinata's quick hand movements. Perhaps he pays a little too much attention to him lately. Just to understand him, of course. 

"Why didn't you join an orchestra if you felt like you couldn't do it alone?" he asks and automatically moves to the stove again. Seems like tea is going to be just fine. He turns his head around, waiting for Hinata's reply. He seem to be thinking about what to say and ultimately settles for something Kageyama didn't expect. And, for the first time, doesn't understand. Hinata gestures that he had a certain feeling so he never ended up joining. But which feeling?

Joining his hands over his chest, furrowed eyebrows... worry? No, he knows the sign for worry and it's not the same. Was he nervous? But he used that sign before too. He could ask Hinata to repeat it. He doesn't. Instead he keeps thinking. It is definitely a negative feeling. Hate? But what would he hate? The subject would be missing. 

Kageyama is so lost in thought that he doesn't realize Hinata stood up and is right in front of him, tapping his arm lightly. He jolts and knocks over tiny pot where the tea is still brewing - and ends up getting it all on his right hand. He exhales sharply, wants to scream but there is no sound coming out. 

It hurts. It burns. 

It's excruciating but Hinata pulls him with him so quickly that he has no time to react, pulls him along out on the hallway to the bucket full of water they brought along when they got home, sinking onto the floor and pulling Kageyama along while shoving his hand under water. 

Kageyama realizes now he started shaking so bad, both in pain and in terror, started crying because it hurt, it really really hurt and it felt like his skin peeled right off of him at once - though that feeling numbs down quickly under the ice cold water. Hinata's hands are still tightly wrapped around his wrists but Kageyama can tell he is in shock too. He doesn't know how much time passes before he lets go. Before he calms down himself and the tears stop. 

He doesn't dare trying to move his hand, he is too afraid that if he can't, he'll pass out. Always took the greatest care not to get his hands hurt because he felt like he might as well die if he can't play. So he leaves it under water, breathing in and out, still trembling faintly. It's fine, it'll be fine. He suddenly remembers the sign for fine Hinata always makes and looks over to him. 

He sits there, hands folded together in his lap, and Kageyama realizes that he shakes so much more than himself. He presses his fingers together and Kageyama imagines it is a little like biting your tongue. It probably is. He can't see Hinata's face but he can hear his breath. It is uneven and ragged and Kageyama knows he's crying. It feels terrible. 

"It's fine," he breathes and he figures he doesn't sound very convincing. It's just the shock still resounding. It certainly is. It doesn't exactly feel silly to be worried about this sort of thing when he gets his hand out of the water again and it starts stinging and burning again. But it could still have been worse and the chances of it healing perfectly fine are good. 

His hands a single tremor, Hinata keeps repeating one sign over and over again. He keeps saying sorry. Over and over again, as if he got stuck with that movement. 

Kageyama has never been particularly good at words. He has never been good at expressing himself, in no sort of situation. He thinks that perhaps he should have been the mute one instead. He lightly taps Hinata's shoulder to make him look up but he doesn't. So he lifts his left hand to Hinata's chin, forcing him to look at him - and God, he cries so much that it makes Kageyama lose force - and starts to gesture with his right hand along with his voice. 

"It's fine already, it's not your fault. Stop crying."

His voice still wavers but it's simply because he doesn't know whether to cry along - and Heavens beware he hopes Hinata didn't catch a glimpse of him crying before because he feels embarrassed at the thought - or to yell at him with all strength left in him. 

He lowers his hand and it hurts considerably less than he expected though his skin feels like it is wrapped far too tightly around his hand and he figures he should probably treat it quickly but it's not going to be more than a scar. All of his former panic seems to be gone as he realizes that, really, it all came from not knowing how to deal with this sort of situation. He feels like an idiot. And he even cried. Embarrassing. 

Hinata sobs, trying to catch his breath but it doesn't seem to be working. His right hand sinks into his lap before he lifts up both of his hands to speak, his lips moving but Kageyama decides it's probably easier to follow his gestures. He starts with a sorry again and Kageyama almost presses his cheeks together firmly between his fingers as he realizes but instead watches Hinata go on. 

"I just wanted to tell you what I said. I thought you didn't understand. I didn't know how to make you look so I walked up to you. I'm sorry. I wish I could have called out to you."

The last part makes Kageyama's heart sink to the very bottom of whatever it can sink to and he lowers his hand from Hinata's face. He is crying considerably less now but the tears still keep falling. He presses his lips together, something Hinata never does, and repeats the gesture Kageyama didn't know before. 

Afraid. Hinata gestures he is afraid that Kageyama won't be able to play anymore because of him. Hinata was... too afraid to join an orchestra. That was what he had been gesturing before. Kageyama stares at him, his hand itching and hurting and he knows he definitely needs to treat it very soon, and deflates. He wonders what Hinata has been so afraid of. He doesn't get the chance to ask him on that evening as Hinata forces himself to calm down and urges Kageyama to let him tend the burn. 

It is weeks later that he can take off the bandage and it still stings when he does, his skin red. He is sure it is going to leave a scar. It impedes him playing a little but it could still have been worse. He is grateful it has just been the back of his hand although he swears the feeling of the tip of his pinky finger is somewhat numb. Perhaps he just imagines it. For the time being, he had stopped playing but today is the first time he wants to give it another try. An actual try, a longer one than just a few trials. 

"Aren't you going to play along?" he asks Hinata who flopped down next to him on the broad piano chair. It is evening already, the stars shine brighter than ever before and for the first time, Kageyama almost has the urge to go out and see them if it wouldn't be his first time playing after a long long time. 

The shorter man shakes his head and he seems fairly exhausted. It is unusual for him to have this little energy. He lifts his right hand to gesticulate that he is going to listen today. Kageyama nods and before he starts playing, Hinata leans his head against his shoulder and looks at him, brows furrowed, lifting his hands once more. 

"Is it fine like this? Can you play if I lean on you?"

Kageyama snorts and flicks his forehead. 

"Oh please. You are not talking to an amateur. Just relax and listen, then," he says and as soon as he presses the first key, he starts to realize how much he missed playing properly. It would be nicer if Hinata would play along but it doesn't feel half bad listening to him breathing calming next to, feeling his shoulders rise and fall and noticing how warm he ist. Kageyama's heart takes a whole rhythm faster than the piece he is playing and he starts to get mildly worried he might get out of step. 

When the piece is over, Hinata feels heavy against him and Kageyama notices he is fast asleep. He leans his cheek onto Hinata's head softly, trying not to wake him up and stares out of the window opposite the piano. Stars shining bright, some of them especially bright and Kageyama wonders if they are a certain constellation, and for the first time he feels like home even though he plays no single sound. 

Years pass, one after another, in which both acquire a fame they haven't dreamt about. Kageyama starts unconsciously gesturing while speaking, no matter how loud he is. He gets used to looking at people while they speak, waiting for them to move their hands but they usually don't. Or at least not in the way he expects them to. He almost feels weirded out by that. When Hinata stands next to him, he minds to have his eyes on him at all times. By now he can keep up with his pace of gesturing so well that he doesn't need to look properly. Hinata tells him it relieves him, one day; and thanks him because he has always been afraid of talking to people, fearing they would not understand. Suddenly, Kageyama realizes why Hinata has never joined an orchestra after all - and secretly feels glad about it.

They play concerts in front of so many people that Hinata keeps getting more and more nervous despite being more and more experienced too. He keeps saying it just gets more and more exciting. Kageyama still worries sometimes before a concert starts that Hinata might mess up. It never happens. They always remain in sync. 

They travel to places they never imagined they would see yet somehow the most striking one to Kageyama is a simple waterfall next to a huge field of poppies. They both sit beside it and stare, Hinata fidgeting and asking him to leave. It seems like he isn't a big fan of poppies, as he later explains. He signals a little too clearly he doesn't like them by making the gesture for hate so hard that his fingers snap. 

They write entire symphonies together when they grow older, and while Kageyama keeps thinking it will be difficult to explain to Hinata why he wants to give certain pieces certain titles, they always agree on them. Hinata says he feels the same while playing and Kageyama is inclined to believe Hinata just doesn't have a better idea. But they do feel the same. When they play, it is the same feeling. 

Years and years after, when Kageyama's hands are to stiff to still play properly, when Hinata's back is too hunched to elicit the beautiful notes he once sounded when they were younger, after having spent an entire lifetime by each other's side, Kageyama wonders about a single gesture he had always wanted to ask of Hinata. They both sit outside on the veranda, gazing up at the sky. Hinata is, despite his age and terrible sight by now, still writing a score they started together not too long ago. Not playing does not mean there are no ideas left.

"How are we going to call it?" Kageyama asks, voice breaking by now. Aging like this... he used to be afraid of growing old, not being able to play. But his life has been more than satisfying. 

Hinata doesn't look up but stops writing. Kageyama wonders if perhaps he didn't hear right. But he did hear just fine when he moves his hands. His skin looks like paper, so thin, and his fingers are shaking a little while gesturing. Kageyama has gotten used to it. It's been like this for years. 

It is a gesture he doesn't know. But he doesn't have to ask. He doesn't even look down when Hinata writes it over the score, deciding to call it like that. He repeats it slowly. Index finger stretched out to his temple, then moving his hand away in a fist and stretching only pinky finger and thumb out. 

"Forever," he says while gesturing along. 

He looks at Hinata's face. It is so wrinkly and old and he almost starts laughing as he realizes just how long they've known each other. So much longer than just this life time. And he feels like there is more to come even if they are doddery old men now. 

He reciprocates Hinata's smile who had never changed and probably never will either. Kageyama thinks about how he has never heard his voice and about how he would have loved to know how it might have sounded like - but maybe next time, he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh so this!!! was something i had in mind to write forever and i felt extremely comfortable while writing it so i do hope you will be able to enjoy it!! 
> 
> in case you wonder about the hand signs and how they look (bc my descriptions are terrible) feel free to check them out over here [on handspeak](http://www.handspeak.com/word/) which is a dictionary for sign language! it's really cool and i wish i would have continued studying it....... but alas i haven't so my knowledge remains limited. sighs


	4. Forever In Another Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note that this chapter treats suicide so be aware if you are triggered by that. also, judging by this, expect this to be a little different from the other chapters. i'm sorry, i hope you will still enjoy it

The letter weighs heavily in his hand as he unfolds it, possibly made of lead rather than of paper judging solely by feeling. He carefully smooths the wrinkles out of the sheet before his eyes focus on a tiny, messy handwriting he knows a little too well to be surprised. His mind is in disarray and so is his heart but he has postponed reading it for more than a month. His soul still hasn't healed. It might never.

_'Good day, detective. ...Or is it afternoon? Evening? Perhaps even night while you read this?'_

Kageyama, though he doesn't go by this name in this life but later even, looks up from the very first line of the letter, directing his gaze to the window. It is dark outside. He has never seen such a starless and moonless night in his life. The light illuminating his room is a candle. Old-fashioned and dim, but it helps him relax. It will be fine. He decides to continue.

_'By the time you read this, I will be no more. I have many things to explain, things I could never tell you face to face. Funny, because you have never seen my face when you hunted me. But you might have in my last moment. Did you see it? Did I look like what you imagined me to be?'_

The paper crumbles under the pressure of Kageyama's fingers, suddenly feeling like glass rather than lead. His face. A memory of half-closed eyelids covering amber-coloured gems beneath, void of the light they used to reflect at night time, mirroring the stars and the moon as if they once belonged to the firmament itself. A memory of lifeless limbs, arms hanging to the side, legs unmoving and body static, only moved by a gust of wind blowing through the cracks of the windows and walls that were so old they could break apart any minute and make the apartment collapse.

His face was peaceful, Kageyama remembers, albeit forlorn. Uncovered of the mask he usually wore - a black mask in form of a crow's, to become one with the darkness of the night or so he supposes - but wearing the same gown he used to wear during numerous hauls, feathers falling soundlessly to the ground one by one as if to show the demise of a crow fallen to the depths of despair.

Kageyama exhales and he tries to focus, tries to get this particular scene out of his mind. He was a thief, nothing else; a brilliant and wicked one as well. He was his opponent, his foe, the person he was supposed to apprehend - whether dead or alive, that matters little in the world of justice as Kageyama has noticed. Yet the picture of his body hanging from the ceiling like a puppet caught up in its strings, never meant to get out of them again, it remains so vivid in his mind that it is morbid.

He has seen dead bodies in his life. He has dealt with them almost every week at least once, sadly. He has seen far worse; bloody messes of skin ripped apart, burnt; bodies dissected, gutted, bodies left with hints to decipher. In his world, Kageyama has learnt to be strong, his will, his mind and his stomach over everything, covering it in steel to prevent madness from taking a toll on him.

Yet this death, it gives him goosebumps, it gives him nightmares, it keeps replaying over and over and over in his mind again. He didn't want to save him. He was an enemy. Then why? Why has that ill feeling never subsided from the second he first laid eyes on the thief's body executed - by no one else than himself - until now to this very moment? Why does it feel like he has had something ripped from him, a part of him severed, only half of him existing any longer?

There was nothing binding them to each other except for letters. Letters sent by the mischievous thief to notify him of the next raid, of the next place he should look for him. Kageyama hasn't been used to take cases like this - his expertise were murder cases rather than simple larceny. But the department had sounded as if it had been in desperate need and the cases Kageyama would have needed to file were low, thankfully.

A thief covered in a dark cloak, dropping feathers to show that he existed but never seen after snatching what he wanted. They had said that he disappeared into the night, that no one saw him, no one could pick up his trail. It had been a challenge. None Kageyama had wanted to lose.

As such, the first encounter... it went terribly. Not managed to catch him yet found out his secret. He never disappeared - he took a different route. The thief was clever, flying over the red, brown and green roofs of the adjacent houses to flee. He jumped over chasms parting the houses as if it was the easiest thing to do. As if he had wings carrying him from one housetop to another. As if the wind was his ally and gravity non-existent.

Kageyama has memorized every single one of the letters the thief had written to him. The very first one was simple. 'You are what I was looking for. Come, find me, catch me.' A small note, a deep black feather slipping out of the envelope. On the back, the address and the time of the raid were scribbled hastily with black ink. Kageyama decided to accept.

And like this, it has gone on and on. Month after month for more than an entire year. There would be an invitation, there would be a meeting and there would be the hunt, the thief three steps ahead of Kageyama at all times. No matter how quickly he seemed to catch up, no matter how used he got to the strains of jumping over roofs he had always followed the crook. Blindly. Obsessively almost, if he looks back. He never had a doubt of what to do. He wanted to catch him. He wanted to win. He _needed_ to.

The picture of a body hanged haunts him, it pops up in his mind and interrupts his dwelling in a past that seems so far away even though it has been barely two months ago since he last saw him alive. The thief with no name except Crow, for his wings, his mask and his attire. Is it because the case has been dragging for so long? Kageyama closes his eyes and sighs deeply, his lungs deflating dangerously as he runs his fingers through his hair.

There it is again; a face with no life, eyes dim. Why can't he let it rest? He opens his eyes again and stares at the letter, not reading a single word. There is so much he doesn't understand about this case, he never got to understand anything. And perhaps the letter will clear up his confusion. But he feels reluctant to read it, like in chains he put onto himself weighing him down to keep himself sane. Heavily, he picks up from the line he read last.

_'I will tell you my story though I do not expect you to believe me. If I would read it like you do now, I would not trust my eyes and the ink spilt on this paper. I feel like I owe you an explanation._

_My story would be in dramatic sense a tragedy. I had a childhood albeit not a very good one but it worked out. My life has been in order, except I have always felt incomplete. I knew there was something - someone - I needed to meet. My parents called me a romantic at the age of 13 as I told them but that was not what I had meant._

_What I had been looking for... it was you.'_

Kageyama freezes. Every word make him uneasy. Shudders run down his back as he clenches onto the paper once more. He needs to keep on reading. He can't stop now, the chains need to be broken. Yet at what cost?

_'I know you have never seen me. I wish you would have. But alas, fortune has not favoured me. I thought we were meant to be, perhaps my parents were right after all. I was a romantic, a dreamer, I thought fate would be mended so you would set your eyes on me. But you never did. I was in your shadow, met you when we attended the same classes. I should have spoken to you but I waited instead._

_I regret this. I regret nothing more. I regret putting my life into faith's hands with no remorse.'_

They could have known each other. Perhaps he wouldn't have had to die like this. But fortune has not favoured him. Not favoured them.Kageyama's nails dig into the sheet. What sort of excuse is this? What sort of story? Isn't this a simple fiction?

_'It was only for a month that we were close enough so I could have reached out for you until I fell sick. I dropped out and cursed the world, I cursed everyone who was happy, everyone who had their dreams fulfilled, I cursed life itself and it got back to me. But I withstood. And I listened._

_Voices told me you had become a detective, you worked in the name of justice. I meant to follow. To gather up and break fate's twisted way of showing me what I could have but keeping it out of my reach. But I might be overlooked again - by fortune and thus by you. And so I grasped the last straw I could think of. I would break fate itself and sin. If I wasn't allowed to have luck, I would bathe myself in misfortune instead._

_I became your opposite. If you would be lawful, I would be evil .'_

No. No, this is wrong. Kageyama feels his insides cringing at the last line. What a crooked way of thinking. What a horrible, ugly way of seeing the world. For the sole reason of a fate he might have thought up, a thing he might have imagined deep in his heart, a feeling too deep but unreasonable for a fragile mind to grasp, ultimately to be broken and pieced together to _this_. Kageyama feels like he can't read on but there is more he needs to know.

_'I never meant to hurt anyone for the sake of my own pride. So I decided to steal. I started small first and it worked out. But you were put to solve bigger cases. I will not lie as these are my last words but I might have contemplated at a time to kill just so you would see me._

_I am glad I have not. I realized I was contorted enough as it was not to commit such a crime. But I moved on. Onto stealing things of worth. And so, I came to these scores I have enclosed with this letter. A national treasure, aren't they? Do you know their origin? Have you listened to their melodies yet?”_

Kageyama glances to a messy pile of sheets, the old paper yellowed and broken almost. The past year, this has been his case. The Crow had stolen these scores from museums and private persons all over the city. They are worth so much that Kageyama fears to even as much as touch them and he had wondered why a thief would steal those - and give them back. They are complete, not a single one missing. He never sold them, burnt them; he seemed to have kept them, collecting them like treasures.

In the background, there is a faint melody playing. Kageyama has subconsciously turned on the record as he came home. He has done this for more than a year. Listening to the same instrumental songs, over and over again, so much he doesn't realize there is music still playing. It has become a part of his life, a part of himself more than it being just a mere background noise.

Yes, he has listened. To a piano and a violin, playing in perfect unison, melodies making him feel nostalgic despite him never being a fan of music in general before this case. His heart feels at ease even with stronger and intenser songs... it gives him a feeling of safety, of focus. Of home.

_'I will tell you the truth about Éclipse Solaire. A truth that has gotten warped and twisted by history, worse than you can imagine. As a detective, I am sure you have investigated on this composer. Have you found out what I am going to tell you? That it was not one but two behind this? That it is not a pseudonym of a shy composer but rather a congregation of two individuals, working together to create masterpieces? Have you known that it was a duet, a pianist and a violinist? Have you known the violinist was mute? That he never spoke a word yet together they had conquered the world with their music? Have you known?”_

This doesn't match up. It does _not_ match up with whatever Kageyama had found out. Éclipse Solaire was supposed to be a single musician, a composer alone whose works had been played by others rather than them playing himself. That's why he had never wanted his name to be revealed, his face never to be known. There are theories floating around, wild ones at that, his music popular in theatres, in operas, in orchestras. There are so many variations by now, both of ideas about the composer and of the music itself that Kageyama has trouble gathering his thoughts.

_'You couldn't have. No one does. And neither should I. But I remember. I remember a life before my own, a life in which I had no voice. A life in which I played the strings of a violin to make up for my lack of volume. A life in which I lived by the side of the only one who picked up my sounds, my signs, my everything. A life I had shared entirely with my pianist - you. In which we played on stages and I was nervous and you would be angry at me but we would be in a perfect unison still._

_Detective, do you believe in reincarnation? I never did. Until I met you.”_

The music in the background suddenly seems too loud, the violin screeching in Kageyama's ears as if the strings were too short, the piano playing too wildly like the beat of his heart. He doesn't believe in it. He never did. Until he read those lines.

White keys under his fingers, black keys alternately played, the sounds mingling together in the air, it makes him feel like home. He never played an instrument. He doesn't even know how to read notes. But Kageyama does know that he once used to. In a world in which he had sunshine right by his side, in which he was happy and fulfilled, a starry sky so bright it blinded his eyes. A life he used to have, far far before this time, far far different from whatever this is - a mutilation of a life he could have had, he used to have and wants to have.

His fingers are shaking and his heart hurts as he keeps on reading. It dawns on him what has given him these reactions.

_'It hasn't been one life. I remember a time in which I was a knight, a stuffy armour and an iron will. I remember a life in which I protected a prince, one that has been excluded, hated by everyone around him. But I loved him. He was my duty. He was my life. You were my reason, and you still are.'_

No. He remembers poppies surrounding him, he remembers constellations he used to be able to say by heart even though he can barely pronounce those in this life. He remembers a wild approach, grabbed by his collar and yelled at out of simple worry, he remembers seeing a fight between a knight and his instructor and almost tearing up for it was the first time someone had taken his side in a long time. Only a half-blood prince, a worthless creature but this knight - he gave him his value back.

It needs to stop. Kageyama feels like he is going insane. These can't be his memories. These can't be a recollection of past lives. He has always been rational, he has always been able to keep calm, he can't give in to possible lies like this. He needs to put the chains back on, he needs to keep himself grounded.

But what if it is the truth? What if these aren't the words of someone who had lost his sense for reality? What if his reason was not a simple obsession but fate's way of bringing them together where they belong to? Right to each other... it should have been. But the way he had taken; it was crooked. It was awry. It didn't work.

It becomes difficult for Kageyama to breathe, to keep his hands still in order to focus his eyes on the tiny letters, it becomes difficult to blank out the music, suddenly separate from his own being.

_'We used to be best friends once, so close like family. You would be good at sewing while I was good at farm work. We would spend every day together. And we promised we would. Forever. We swore a blood oath on always._

_Do you see? I believe you will not trust these words. Yet this is my reason. I had wanted to return, return to your side but my ways have been wrong. _I_ was wrong._

_I should have spoken to you. I don't understand why I never did. We could have been what we used to be. If only I had spoken. But my tongue was sealed the moment I had seen you as if I had been thrown back into my old self with no voice. Fate is cruel to show me such things and hinder my way._

_Yet the fault lies elsewhere. It lies within me for being foolish. If I am your opposite... how will I ever walk beside you? How should I ever reclaim my rightful place? For this life, I have failed. My hatred for the world has made me blind like a child who didn't get what it desired._

_I have no place next to you any longer. Not in this life. I wanted to make you see me, focus on me, I wanted you to remember like I did. I wanted you to know that we belong to each other_.  _But I have done it wrong. Perhaps I would have gotten a chance if I had been more patient. Perhaps things could have been different._

_I cannot bear to think about our lives being split. You are one half of a whole and I am the other. I have never felt more complete than in the nights you would follow. I curse myself for putting up a barrier of my own, for denying us to be truly complete. Forever._

_Maybe next time we will. I will be waiting for you. I shall find you in our next lives and atone for what I have destroyed this time. Please forgive me.'_

The ink bleeds until it fades from the letter, vision blurry as Kageyama stares at the last line. His skin is burning under the tears that seep from his eyes. He doesn't remember when he started crying, he doesn't compute why he does it at all. He should mean nothing to him. He could have been a lunatic, telling lies, trying to justify his actions with insane excuses.

Yet he means everything. A half gone. A part taken. Ripped from Kageyama forcefully - by his other half's own choice. A body hanging from the ceiling, a face so peaceful as it waits for another life to take him and grant him another chance, a person broken because of memories that did not belong, living in a constant state of nostalgia. These feelings overwhelm his entire being, his soul ripped into pieces of himself - pieces of what he used to be. A simple famer, a prince, a pianist - but most of all, bound to the person years later to be called Hinata.

He has lost him. He has lost himself. Chains broken, heart shattered, Kageyama is certain that if his words weren't true, he could have tossed this away. It is a piece of paper, worthless to anyone as the words sound bizarre but of utmost importance to him, linking him to worlds he has been in, worlds in which he had been complete, reviving events he has never experienced and yet he has. But in this life, all has been distorted.

Silence falls over the room as the classical piece is finished, and the fourth time Hinata and Kageyama meet ends with no always and no forever.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so. have you been surprised? i kind of tried myself on writing a little differently than usual but i think i probably failed. i'm not too keen on the result but i read this ten times too often anyway. i can imagine it is content-wise probably kind of? out of place maybe. maybe. i don't know anymore i have only slept four hours pls bear with me. i hope i didn't mess up the tenses too bad god damn
> 
> oh yeah trivia for you! these two versions of hinata and kageyama are the only ones who actively remember. all other versions have deja-vus of some sort instead of steady memories, with thief hinata being also the actual only one who remembers without any trigger except for being close to kageyama! yeah idk maybe you wanted to know
> 
> and lastly, please do check out [this amazing illustration of thief!hinata](http://doodledrops.tumblr.com/post/128390602058/thiefhinata-for-the-extremely-precious) but also [these close-ups](http://doodledrops.tumblr.com/post/128390682443/full-thief-outfit-here-for-volleycrows) both by the wonderful [kris](http://doodledrops.tumblr.com/) because they are more than just accurate, he looks absolutely _perfect_!


	5. Forever yet Forgotten

The strings wrapped around his fingers are not moving the slightest, his hands remarkably steady considering he stands in front of a massive audience. Loud and shrill voices come to his ears - but it is not unusual that the people watching him are mainly children. They enjoy watching a puppeteer's show, Hinata has learnt throughout the years. They love the stories that are told by puppets moving almost magically, each doll voiced by the same person almost as if there are multiple voices hidden in a single body. Seldom, when the audience is small and Hinata daring, he tries speaking through the dolls without moving his lips, being a ventriloquist - what a word, he can barely say it without getting his tongue knotted. 

The voices quiet down, even the wind calms as Hinata starts speaking through his puppets. He tells a story he has played over and over again in his hometown and all surrounding towns until he has decided to move here, two days away from his old home by carriage. For the sake of opening a small shop for toys, actually. Hand-crafted because he thought his show would get old. But some townsfolk here recognized him and begged him to perform. For their children, they said. They have suffered for so long under endless scavenging during times of war, they have barely had a childhood at all. How was Hinata supposed to say no?

There is no script to the story. It is ingrained within Hinata’s mind. He never thought it would be popular. It sounded like a normal fairytale to him, the type his parents told him when he was younger before going to bed. When he made his first doll years and years ago, during that process the story unfolded in his mind as if it had always been there. 

His lips move with no break, his voice changing and switching from character to character. It is just two of them, it is not difficult. The story goes like this: There was once the sun and the moon. There were no better friends than them but forcefully ripped apart as they were never meant to shine at the same time. As such, the sun felt lonely and descended to Earth in human form, thinking the moon would like to see them walk at night. The Sun Child found a friend during his time on Earth, a friend who followed them wherever they went - the Shadow Child. They spent a lot of time together and the moon grew jealous that they had something it could never achieve. When the Sun Child and the Shadow Child promised to each other to stay together forever, the moon is so furious, it takes the Shadow Child away and turns it into a star, leaving the Sun Child behind to stare at the night sky alone. 

When he first told his parents this story, they told him it would be too cruel to tell it to children. But they ended up loving it - and they still do, he thinks as he hears the applause of the audience. He isn’t sure whether it is the story or the performance they like but it doesn’t matter to him. When he peeks over the miniature stage he has build for the dolls, he can see children smiling and chattering away with their friends, perhaps. Or their parents. Nothing satisfies Hinata more. 

As always, he doesn’t know why, but his eyes roam through the audience before he bows and lets his dolls do the same. He feels like he is looking for something but he has never found out what- Inspiration, perhaps. Or a familiar face? Someone to bond with. Someone he never had. Hinata, though this is not his name quite yet, has been lonely in his life as a puppeteer despite having a lot of acquaintances of all sorts. 

The crowd disperses, Hinata sitting on the ground and slowly dismantling the stage, folding parts of it together when he hears footsteps approaching. He turns his head to see a little girl, perhaps at around 6 or 7, tiptoeing up to his side.

“Ah, you caught me,” she whispers and Hinata guesses confusion is so blatant on his face that the girl starts giggling. “My brother said you wouldn’t talk to me but I sneaked away and tried to prove him wrong.”

Hinata blinks but a grin spreads on his face as he hears her plan. “Why wouldn’t I talk to you?” he asks, voice low and feigning sudden shock. “Unless… you are a witch! And try to take my voice away! If yes, then please leave, lovely witch, I need my voice to do my job!” His voice being overly dramatic makes the girl smile and snicker. 

“Even if I were a witch, I wouldn’t take your voice away! I really love your plays!” she replies and her eyes are filled with amazement - so much that Hinata feels flustered but he doesn’t let it shine through. His heart is beating faster when he hears her words and he thinks it might not be a bad idea to perform the other stories he has. One day, he should. Nothing makes him happier than faces filled with delight. 

“It’s good to hear I have the approval of such a nice witch!” he laughs and folds the part he used for the trees in the background of the stage. “So, little witch, will you keep me company until your brother finds you?”

“Can I?” Her eyes shine in excitement and Hinata nods with a smile on his face. “Can I talk to you for a little then? Ask you things?”

“I would appreciate that, go ahead!” He unscrews the wooden panels and pops them up as he waits for the girl to talk. What a nice change of events. He is used to be left alone, most thinking they would disturb him but his hands move automatically by now. Stage up, stage down, puppets moving, speaking, all of it is still improvised yet there is a routine in his actions from years of practise. He likes the company of others but he has never quite grown close to anyone. 

“I saw your show before! About a year ago in another town not far from here and ever since I wondered… did the Sun Child ever return to the sky?” she asks as she diligently watches Hinata pile the props one over the other. 

He didn’t expect this sort of question but he owes her a reply. He stays quiet for a bit, pondering over what to say but she seems to be patient. “Even if the Sun Child returned,” he starts as he unscrews the bottom part of the stage, covered by a colourful cloth so expensive that Hinata would rather not think of how much material for new dolls he could have bought with that money. “Do you think they would see each other again?”

It’s the girl’s turn to be silent but she replies quicker than Hinata thought. “Stars and moon are at night and the sun is at day,” she says, folding her hands together behind her back. She has casted her eyes down, visibly sad about the outcome. “I already thought so,” she adds softly. 

“If I were the Sun Child,” Hinata says as he dusts off the last few wooden panels he stacks onto the others, “I wouldn’t return. Like this, I could at least see the stars and the moon at night. Even if I could never touch them, never speak to them, but I’d at least be able to see them forever.”

“Forever?” The girl sits down on one of the bare boards but Hinata doesn’t object. He is doing the same, after all. “Does the Sun Child live forever because it isn’t human? Because it is the sun?”

Hinata stops in his tracks and crosses his arms pensively. For a girl of her age, she is asking quite difficult questions. Questions that upset Hinata deep within without him knowing for what reason. “Did you know? I heard when people die they become stars. Maybe the Sun Child is waiting for that. Not for ‘forever’ but for an end.”

This might be too heavy for such a young girl but surprisingly she nods, looking like the question has cleared up. “My brother said the same. He said Mummy and Daddy are stars now and that they are watching over us. So the Sun Child waits for this to happen so it can be together with his friends again, right? That’s a nice ending,” she explains with a smile. 

Hinata presses his lips together and he feels like this affected him more than her. But why? Perhaps because he knows that even stars don’t live forever. So what if by the time the Sun Child dies, the Shadow Child will be gone? What if the moon will have darkened? It might be lonely again. He doesn’t say anything until the girl strikes up the conversation again. 

“The dolls, you make them yourself, right? Those are so pretty!” She bounces off the wooden board and runs up to Hinata’s side as he grabs the Shadow Child’s doll. The first doll he has ever made, the one with which it all started. He still works on it nowadays so it wouldn’t be obvious that it was the work of a 13-year old rascal stealing his father’s work material. 

The next words spill over his lips out of his control. “Then make sure to visit my shop. It’s the reason I have moved here. It is just down the street.”

She fidgets before she replies and grabs the hem of her dress. “...But they are expensive, aren’t they? I can’t… really…”

“It’s fine,” he huffs as he binds the panels together. “I will give one to you if you come and visit me again. As a thank-you for talking to me.” He leans the boards, neatly tied together, against the bench behind him and starts packing the dolls into small boxes, careful not to tangle up the strings. 

The girl’s eyes lighten up but her eyebrows wrinkle only a split second later. He casts her gaze down. “...My brother would probably not accept that. I am sure if I asked him, he would get me a doll but… he is already working a lot so we have a lot to eat and a nice house and nice clothes… I…”

“He sounds like a good person.” He stacks the boxes one over the other until there is a small tower standing right next to him. He notices how unstable it looks so he takes the Shadow Child’s box and puts it onto the bench. They could break if they fall. It’s not as if he couldn’t mend them but he would rather not hurt them. 

“He is! My brother is really great! He is the town’s doctor so he helps a lot of people!” The enthusiasm has returned to her voice and her eyes glisten as she speaks. No wonder, if her brother is the only family she has left, she must love him a lot. And he does sound like the type of person who would be loved from what Hinata has heard. She lowers her voice quickly though. “...But it’s also a lot of work so… I’m often alone at home.” But quickly adds, “I don’t really mind, I’m a big girl and I can even cook for myself!”

Hinata chuckles and wraps the cloth around the props and the dolls on the floor so he could transport them easier. He won’t be in town for two days, leaving for his hometown. He has left some things there but has been asked to perform. He doesn’t mind it much, especially not after such a fruitful performance. “If you ever feel lonely, you can come and visit me. I don’t know a lot of people here, it’s been just two weeks ever since I came here.”

“Wouldn’t that be bothering your work?” she says the hem of her dress is so wrinkled that Hinata is sure it will need a lot of tending before the creases will be flattened out again. He shakes his head. 

“I don’t mind. The only sounds I hear during crafting is music anyway. I would welcome a conversation or two.” He binds the ends of the cloth together and hums the melody of a song he listen to repeatedly when he is working. It is a duet of a piano and a violin, he thinks he remembers this particular song to be called Forever. It is an old record his mother once gave to him when he was younger and ever since, it has been an inspiration whenever he hears it. It gives him the feeling of not being as lonely as he thinks, sometimes. 

“You sound like you don’t want to be alone,” the girl suddenly states and Hinata is taken aback but she continues, “I will ask my brother to come with me. Maybe you will get along.”

A dry laugh worms its way out of Hinata’s throat as he makes the last knot. “He is very welcome to visit me if he isn’t too busy but it’s not really necessary.”

“But--” The girl jolts together as she hears a voice in the distance. Hinata hasn’t picked up on who it was or what was said but the girl apparently did. “That’s my brother… I better get back before he worries too much.”

Hinata smiles brightly and nods. “Do that. Thank you for today, little witch.”

“I will come and visit you, don’t forget!” she declares as she runs to her brother’s side who stops in his tracks as he sees her. Hinata sees him from afar, a glance taken and he feels like he sees a family. They seem happy, the two of them, with the way things are. He flinches as he hears his name being called right behind him. 

“You are the puppeteer, right? You requested a carriage to take you two towns down the main road, am I correct?” An elderly man sitting at the front of a small coach has been the one calling out. Is it time already? Has he talked this much to the girl? 

“Yes, that’s me!”

Half an hour later, after loading his entire baggage onto the carriage, Hinata leaves for his hometown, not realizing he forgot to pack something along the boards and panels and boxes of dolls. The box with the Shadow Child still sits on the bench when Hinata is gone, and it is picked up by the small hands of a little witch on her way to the puppeteer’s shop, thinking of returning it to him and scolding him for forgetting it. He isn’t at home, not for a day, not for two, not for a week. 

The visit turned out to last longer, Hinata’s mother had fallen sick and he didn’t want to leave her like this. He cancelled the performances and took his time to tend her, his father too busy with work to do so. She feels better when he is on his way back to his shop a week later, thankfully. He didn’t as much as look at the props for his plays in that one week at home, only noticing when he unwraps the boards and plates and boxes that one is missing. 

The Shadow Child is gone and it dawns on him that he must have forgotten him. How? He looks for it again and again but he doesn’t find it, retracing his steps but how would it still be on that bench when a week has passed. The doll is no more, he realizes, and his heart stings. It doesn’t matter, he can remake it, he has enough material. Or so he thinks. 

But as his shop is closed, as the violin is screeching into his ears, being more unpleasant than soothing as before, as the piano hammers in his mind, he starts feeling like everything has gone wrong. It was just a puppet, just a doll, it was a thing. He has made so many of them but none has ever meant as much to him as that one. It was the first one, the design and the work, years and years of work, it came from his heart but it is gone now. 

The first Shadow Child he remakes doesn’t have the right face. The second doesn’t have the right clothes. The third doesn’t move right. For the fourth Hinata has no voice to give. After ten, twenty, possibly even what feels for Hinata like thirty Shadow Children, he has lost his senses. His fingers are numb, his eyes hurt, his back is hunched and his heart is broken. Over a doll. 

But perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps the very first Shadow Child had been magic. Perhaps it was the friend Hinata had always wanted. He doesn’t remember what he thought when he made it. He wanted to try himself out, he wanted to see if he could craft something. It looked so ugly at first but Hinata loved it. He never had problems talking to others yet he never quite clicked with anyone at all. He feels void when he thinks of the many, many faces he has seen throughout his life, even his parents seem distant to him now. 

When he realizes that perhaps he has never belonged in this world in the first place, that perhaps the reason why he feels more at ease when he pretends to be so many roles is that he wants to be somewhere else, someone else, he does something he has never done before. He starts crying and wailing, there is no one to hear him, no one to see him except for a pile of forsaken dolls of which none is the right one. Because the right one is gone. 

He is sure he must have done something wrong at some point. He is sure he is being punished to be alone, to never find someone to bond with. Work might be his life, it has been for years now and his futile attempts to fit in had been just a waste of time. And with this thought, with the music at his back and days and nights passing, Hinata doesn’t come out of the shop again, from the moment he lost the Shadow Child to the moment he drops the needle and the cloth he’s holding, to the moment his vision goes black and his senses disappear entirely. 

In this life, Hinata has lived alone and died alone, surrounded by a multitude of friends he had wanted to have - but crafted himself yet none of them being the one he has searched for. He has had it in his hands yet lost it and himself with it. 

As much as Hinata felt wrong in this world, as much he was loved by those around him. Alive, he has been too absorbed in his work, in his delusions of being misplaced to hear the knocks on his door, every day at the same time. It was a little witch, wanting to return what Hinata has lost but he never opened the door to her, never heard her over the violin and piano singing in the back of the small room he worked in. Yet the last was not a knock, it was the door opening forcefully with a key, and it was not the girl but Hinata’s mother, worried sick over her son’s absence in the latest days. She finds him collapsed on the floor, fallen off the chair he used to work on, materials and dolls encircling him almost protectively. Even though she knows it is too late for her son to survive as he already ceased breathing, perhaps even a day before, she calls the town’s doctor - a young man but he is known for his skills and iron will to keep his patients alive. 

He hasn’t been doctor for long yet he has seen many pass away, has found many dead in their beds, their rooms, one even at the dining table, face sunk in his soup although he did not drown in it but died of a simple heart attack. As he enters the shop of the puppeteer, opens the door to the small room hidden behind the counter to find a mother crying over her already dead son. There is not much the young doctor can do, he can tell from afar that the puppeteer has died a day, maybe two ago.

Apologies stumble over his lips as he makes sure, trying to feel the puppeteer’s pulse. There is none, of course, and the mother’s weeping does not stop. He is never unfazed when he sees someone dying or already dead right in front of him but the doctor has learnt to deal with it. A soul of steel is needed for such a work, his mentor used to tell him. It is the truth. 

He doesn’t know whether it is the mother wailing so bitterly for her son, whether it might be the silent scratching of a gramophone’s needle upon a record long over combined with the multitude of lonely looking puppets sitting in shelves, some dropped to the floor even or whether it is the thought of his little sister who has admired and loved the puppeteer so dearly that makes his stomach feel uneasy, his heart pierced by a sadness he has never felt before. 

The memory of the small room, of the many dolls, of the stuffy air, they are vivid as the doctor arrives at home hours later; he is tired and exhausted, clouded still by a melancholy he does not comprehend. Footsteps race to the door, they are small and quick and a second later, his sister wraps her arms around him and giggles. 

“Welcome back!” she says and it makes his heart feel heavier. The doctor suddenly recalls his sister wanting to visit the puppeteer. She has asked whether he would like to accompany her but he has always been too busy. ‘I’ll go alone!’ she would say then, and she did. But whenever he asked for the result, she always replied the same. ‘I knocked but no one replied. The door is locked too so perhaps he hasn’t returned yet.’ Every evening when he asked, she would always tell him the same. He might have been there, the puppeteer. Yet he worked, day and night, as if obsessed - ultimately leaving to his death. He was starved and tired, it was a first for the young doctor to see someone dying of exhaustion and most likely forgetting to do the most basic thing to keep yourself alive - eat and drink. How absorbed in his work must that poor craftsman have been? 

“Good evening,” he replies and strokes her hair softly. They know each other too well, she will be able to tell that something has happened. The doctor never deemed himself able to conceal his feelings well in front of his sister and he didn’t approve of lying either. He was taught to be honest, and so he also taught his sister to be. 

And so, the next question of hers does not surprise him in the least. “Has something happened, brother?” Her voice is small yet her grip around him tightens. He exhales, his lung feeling oddly empty, and kneels down to meet her eyes. She looks worried, an emotion the doctor had never wanted to see on her face but he is unable to smile at her, unable to ease her doubt. Instead, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, leaning his face at her small shoulder. She reciprocates his gesture automatically, tiny arms wrapping around the doctor’s neck. 

“Do you remember? You found a doll a few weeks ago, right?” He speaks quietly, trying not to sound too upset. Why would he be? He has never spoken to the puppeteer but he knows how much he and his stories have meant to his sister. Knowing he is no more and trying to explain it to a child, moreover his sister whom he had to tell years before that their parents were no longer, that they would watch over them as stars on the night sky, it makes him feel anxious. 

“Do you remember the story? The moon and the sun once were best friends but they could never be together. Thus the sun said ‘I will be human so I can see you at night’ and took on a human child’s form.” 

There is silence at first, he listens to his sister breathing calmly as she tries to recite the lines she remembers. “The moon did not comprehend but it could not do the same for as moon and sun do not belong on earth, they are celestial bodies up in the sky, or so it thought. It watched its friend bonding with a mere shadow, a child made of pure dark, blacker than any night sky it experienced. The Sun Child and the Shadow Child, their adventures together made them swear an oath of forever.” 

“Yet the moon, it was jealous, it could not watch its friend taken away from it,” the doctor continues and exhales, “In the night after their oath, it took away the Shadow Child and turned it into light, a star upon the night sky. And such, the Sun Child left alone, gaze stuck on the starry sky, always focused on its friends, might still walk the earth, being watched over at night.”

The last few words are heavy on the doctor’s lips as he feels like crying. He does not have another reason than to blame it on exhaustion and on his sister’s sadness as she will learn about the puppeteer’s death even though it feels like there is a feeling that lingers, much deeper than the doctor would have imagined. He has never spoken to the puppeteer but he did not seem like the kind to deserve such a death. 

“It is my favourite story,” his sister suddenly says, tensing up. “But I know you don’t like it a lot.”

He would object but he can’t. It is true yet it is not. He doesn’t dislike the story, he simply feels off when hearing it. Something about it sends shivers down his spine - it feels like there is a certain loneliness about it and, as he has seen in the afternoon, perhaps that was the puppeteer’s real world. How could the Children swear forever but it lasting only a single day before the night fell? It is supposed to be a story about friendship and easing the pain of losing someone but to the doctor, it has always felt like there was something missing. An ending, perhaps. A proper ending. 

“I visited the puppeteer today.” His voice cuts through the heavy air, it is sharp but calm. His sister jumps out of his arms and looks at him, surprise widening her warm eyes.

“Really? Is he back home?”

He presses his lips together and avoids looking at her. It should be easier. He was not her family. He was perhaps an acquaintance at best. But he knows how much she has liked the puppeteer’s story and acting. Still, why is this so difficult? 

“...He must have been home the entire time but… he did not hear you visiting him every day.” His tongue feels like lead. What a disgusting feeling brooding within him. Perhaps it is just the guilt that he didn’t notice earlier. That he couldn’t save him. But what of? Of his obsessions? His delusions? The possibility of the puppeteer having lost his sense of reality is tremendous. He had been surrounded by dolls he must have recently crafted, hands and arms covered in small cuts and bruises. 

His sister says nothing, lowering her head slowly. “So… he didn’t want to see me…? But I meant to bring him back his doll… he asked me, I swear, I didn’t want to bother him.” Her voice is breaking as she speaks up, her brother unable to look at her without bursting into tears. He wants her to be happy and he knows she is a good girl. He remembers her going on and on about how she would like to see how the puppeteer works because it sounded interesting when she talked to him about it. 

“I know,” the young doctor replies and takes his sister’s hands into his own. She is trembling, trying not to cry as she feels like she is being scolded. “And I think if he knew it was you wanting to give back to him what he had lost, he might have…”

He might have lived. The doctor only took a quick glance around the puppeteer’s room in the afternoon but he noticed all dolls looking the same to his eyes. They were of the Shadow Child, the doll his sister had found weeks ago on the bench in front of the plaza the puppeteer had performed on. They had forgotten to get the vegetables from the farmer’s wife so they had to return just a little after the puppeteer had left for his home town. His sister noticed the box and recognized it, taking it with her and saying she would give it back to him on the next occasion or he would be sad. A foreboding, in retrospect, but how could they have known. 

“I’m sorry,” the doctor breathes and uninvited tears roll down his cheeks. He can’t think of any valid reason, none that would make him feel sad and sorry. He is a doctor, he should be able to deal with this and even if this is about his sister, he has started crying before she did. She returns back to his side, arms locking around his neck and nuzzling his cheek with her nose as she starts sobbing. 

“He is a star now? ...Like Mummy and Daddy?” she asks, voice shaking. 

The young doctor nods slowly and presses his lips together. He needs to be strong, for her sake. Ever since their parents had died, he has always only had her best interest in mind. He would try to make her life as good as possible even though she complained at times that she was feeling lonely. Lonely. It isn’t an emotion the doctor has never felt before yet why now? His sister is right next to him, she is his everything, his family yet he feels as if something is missing now. Why?

“It is fine,” his sister says as she tries to stop crying, “It is fine. He has… The puppeteer, he said… the Sun Child… it would want to have an ending too. So it could return to his friends as a star. It’s fine, right? ...It’s the same, right? It’s a nice ending… right?” 

He keeps quiet as his sister hugs him tighter. The puppeteer, he figures, might have returned to no one - a tragedy, in fact, rather than a nice ending but he doesn’t voice it. For the first time, he keeps a secret from his sister instead of telling her outright. 

Days later, the two of them, the young doctor and his sister, go to visit their parents’ grave. The little witch holds onto her brother’s hand, squeezing it so she wouldn’t get lost as they walk a very familiar way to two simple tombstones. They don’t stay long, the doctor changing the flowers and returning to his sister’s side. It is a simple request but she wants to see the puppeteer’s grave and tell him that she misses his shows and his stories. Her brother is inclined to refuse but gives in. What bad will it do? She even brought a flower for his grave as well. 

It is not difficult to find it, a sea of flowers making the puppeteer’s place of rest seem like a glade rather than a grave. He has never been lonely, the doctor thinks but doesn’t speak up. He had so many to appreciate and to love him for who he was. Even if they were no close friends to him, he was missed bitterly still. A tragedy, no less. 

His sister parts with him, letting go of his hand and laying down a single poppy right next to all the other flowers around. Poppies, the young doctor once read, are said to signal eternity and peace. He doesn’t walk up to his grave as his sister does, speaking away and holding onto the Shadow Child’s doll she carries with her everywhere now, but he thinks he wants that to come true for the puppeteer. For him to rest in peace, forever, and leave his pain behind is what the young doctor, in the future to be called Kageyama, wishes for the half of him he never personally met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haaaaa this hurt me on too many levels. my writing has become so inconsistent that this is probably barely readable as a whole but i hope you can forgive me there. basically, the idea of this is that hinata has gotten punished for his suicide in his previous life because, as you might know, religiously it is a sin to kill yourself and waste your life. seems like destiny thought the same and had hinata and kageyama exist next to each other, so very tangible, but in the end they haven't spoken a single word. somehow sad, isn't it, it's supposed to be kagehina but there was no kagehina at all. i failed. 
> 
> it's been kinda ooc probably and you might ask yourself why the heck kageyama has a little sister in this but hinata doesn't, WELL, let me spoil you but hinata and kageyama are not the only ones who are reborn. the bond the little sister has formed with hinata alas short but she keeps her promise to make him feel less lonely in their nextlife - by being his sister instead of kageyama's. i hope you could still enjoy this AND WHY DO I RAMBLE SO MUCH BY E


	6. Be My Forever and I'll be Yours

As a child, maybe 4 or 5, Kageyama remembers having read a story about the sun and the moon being friends but never together. Well-meant but misunderstood, the sun decided to send a sun ray to Earth so it could watch the moon at night in full splendor and tell the sun about it at day time. But the child made of sun, it had a friend following from the second it stepped on Earth - a shadow, slightly taller, and the opposite of what the sun was made of. 

They had never been apart and while they thought to be too different to get along at first, they became friends in the end. Not just friends, they realized they were a set, one not working without the other and they decided to swear an oath. That they would be together forever. That they would always follow each other, without falter. The moon overheard the promise and grew jealous - taking the shadow away from the sun and turning it into a light at the night sky; a star shining down on the Sun Child even in the darkest night. 

Years later, Kageyama can’t recall how the story ends but he does remember that whenever he felt lonely, he thought of that story. And that was not seldom. Loneliness had followed Kageyama as if it had been the Shadow Child itself following the Sun Child. No matter how much he tried, no matter how often he reached out, it only resulted in him growing more frustrated. What was it that he did differently than others? What was it that made him so repulsive that others wouldn’t even bother listening to him? Why had no one grasped the hand he stretched out so desperately? 

Nights and nights over, pillows full of tears, lower lip bitten so hard it never properly healed up, Kageyama wondered what he did wrong. Night after night, he decided to try harder the next day. Day after day, he was being rejected. Every day more than the one before. 

Kageyama hates giving up; so he wonders at what point ‘we’ turned into ‘I’, when ‘our’ became ‘mine’, when ‘we can do it together’ came as ‘I will manage alone’ over his lips. He can’t remember anymore. Like the end of that story, he has forgotten. Until he meets Hinata. 

The first time is at a tournament in middle school. The times in which Kageyama tried to bond with his teammates is long past by the time he faces Hinata in the corridors of the gym. Only “I will move on” is stuck in Kageyama’s mind when he speaks to Hinata but there is a certain reflex within him, something about Hinata’s way of speaking and presenting himself that reminds him of a story - one he heard as a young boy. About two friends, about a promise and a forever that never actually happened. Or did it? The ending never seems to come to his mind. 

He feels like he almost has it together when the match against Hinata’s team is over but his mind is too full of this person he has never seen before in his entire life. Someone he would have liked to be in team with, would have liked to form and tweak but his thoughts are not entirely related to volleyball. Perhaps he would have liked to call them a teammate, perhaps even a friend. But how when he can’t even call his teammates the same? When he can’t even say they are a team in the first place? Though, and he can tell when the others walk far in front of him, he is the only one not fitting in. They are a team - but he is not part of it. It’s fine, he has told himself so for some time now, he can do it alone. He doesn’t need to click with them to make things work. 

Kageyama’s heart doesn’t skip a beat at the prospect of having found a rival in Hinata rather than a friend; it doesn’t stop when he is told he will be defeated by a face full of tears and snot and it most definitely doesn’t start beating again when he turns his back on Hinata, hoping and praying to see him again. In a twisted way, he figures years later, he might have been so desperate for a bond that he reached out for an adversary rather than a friend. At that point, any bond was enough for him.

Enough to drive him on even when his teammates abandon him and leave him standing. He watches the game from the bench and frustration builds up in his chest, it feels like bursting, like cracking through his bones. It makes him want to scream, to yell but he has done that to no avail, too often to still keep count of it. How much louder does his voice have to be until someone hears? How much more does he have to give to be understood? 

Fate has never been good to him. He might have messed up something in another life. He heard that on TV before albeit in a drama his mother had fallen asleep to by the time he came home from training. That fate is only good to you if you have been good in a previous life. That it will punish you for something another self might have done wrong. It’s unfair is what Kageyama decides along with the choice not to believe in something stupid like that.

He can’t explain how, out of all persons that could have possibly stepped into his new high school’s gym, it is Hinata to storm in. And suddenly he remembers that story again, and he remembers something like forever and something like fate. Something like his past self hoping to see him again, to reach out properly the next time, to fight with all he has and be worthy of being called a rival. And for a split second, it brings the feeling back of wanting to be in the same team as Hinata. Fate had never had a more defined shape than in that very moment to Kageyama. 

It’s still a vivid memory in Kageyama’s mind years later. He steps into the bedroom, the lights are on and there is music playing as he closes the door. It is the violin part of a song he knows far too well, a song that plays in his mind even when it is nowhere to be heard, one that has always felt like home to him ever since he first heard it. 

Hinata discovered it when he forcefully ripped one of Kageyama’s earbuds out during their second year on their way to Tokyo for another training camp. ‘Oh, Kageyama-kun,’ he said back then, ‘who would have thought you like classical music,’ stuffed the bud in his ear and shut up immediately, deflating next to Kageyama. Hinata leant against him and kept quiet for the rest of the way, listening closely while Kageyama’s embarrassment faded. It became a sort of ritual for them to listen to the same song over and over again, in a loop whenever they were on their way somewhere else. ‘It sounds like home,’ Hinata said shortly after they moved together, turning up the volume and flopping face front onto his bed. ‘It always has.’

The piano starts to accompany the violin when Kageyama slides the door to the small balcony open, Hinata’s back pressed onto the second part of the door. He is hunched up under a terrifyingly ugly quilt made by his mother who found her passion in stitching after Kageyama left the house, his phone next to him blaring the classical song called Forever in a volume that their neighbours are probably going to complain in the nearest future but Hinata doesn’t seem to care. His eyes are cast down on a book spread out right in front of him, not looking up as Kageyama steps outside and crouches next to him. 

“What are you doing outside?” Hinata flinches when he hears Kageyama’s voice so close to him, nearly jumping out of the quilt. He is still as easy to scare as ever, Kageyama can barely suppress a grin. 

“Since when have you been there!?” he asks out of breath and pulls the blanket closer around him. “Like… at least knock or something.”

Kageyama lifts his hand and knocks on Hinata’s forehead with a blank expression. “Well, yeah, hello, I am back home. So, what are you doing outside?”

Hinata’s eyebrows furrow and he huffs. “Jackass.”

“You said I should knock.”

“At the balcony door.”

“You said I should knock,” Kageyama repeats and leans forward slightly to be able to see what Hinata has been looking at. It looks like a picture book but he can barely recognize what it is about as the sun has already gone down and the only source of light is the dim bedroom light from inside. Why would Hinata sit outside to read when he could do it inside just as well, even better? What an idiot. “You wouldn’t have heard if I knocked anyway.”

“Ah.” Hinata looks over to his phone and stretches to grab it. “I forgot about this,” he murmurs as he turns the volume down for the music to quietly play in the background, blending in perfectly with the soft but cold breeze that sends shivers down Kageyama’s spine. He breathes in sharply, Hinata glancing at him with one eyebrow lifted. 

“You cold?”

Hinata doesn’t wait for a reply but holds one end of the quilt into Kageyama’s face. He grabs it without a word and crawls next to Hinata, shuffling closer to him and closing the blanket over both of them again. At least it is big enough for that, it’s the only thing they use this ugly thing for. On the balcony and last winter even in the living room as their kotatsu broke and they had to warm up by huddling against each other.

“I can’t believe it’s already this cold, it’s just September,” Kageyama says and he feels Hinata sliding even closer to him, barely giving him space to move yet the warmth the other emits is making up for it. It feels comfortable like this, despite the little room they both have. 

Hinata’s eyes return to the pages of the book again, turning a page. “What are you reading?” Kageyama asks after Hinata shows to be unresponsive to his earlier statement. 

Over the time he has known Hinata, Kageyama noticed that he is rarely able to focus on more things than one to do. Except for when he eats. He can eat, read and speak all at the same time but aside from that, Hinata rarely does two things at a time. 

“Mmmm.” The music stops playing for a second but it starts again. On loop, as always. “I found this book in one of the unpacked boxes in the closet. We’ve been living here for, like, 4 years or what but we still haven’t looked through those.”

“Huh.” Kageyama leans his head onto Hinata’s, soft hair tickling his cheek as he scans the page. The light is better from this position so he actually sees what picture book it is Hinata has found. It used to be one of his old ones, the story about the Sun Child and the Shadow Child. “I didn’t know I took this with me.”

“I know this story,” Hinata says and flips another page, apparently not interested in what is written on them. Kageyama still wonders why he would sit outside for that. The bed would have been more comfortable - hell, anywhere would have been. “Mum read it to me when I was younger.”

Kageyama’s eyes are fixed on the page, dark with white spots and two small silhouettes in the middle. It is the part where they promise to each other to be together forever at night. He hasn’t thought about this story in a long, long time. He isn’t lonely anymore nor is he yearning as he used to be. He feels the heat rising in his chest at the mere thought of it but keeps quiet as he feels Hinata shifting his position. 

“The ending of it is really nice.” Another page flipped. The part where the Shadow Child is turned into a star. Hinata leans back, his cheek rubbing on Kageyama’s sleeve. 

“How is that a good ending? The Sun Child ends up alone after the moon takes his friend away.”

“Ah, but that’s not how it ends. Or at least not in the version Mum always told me.” Hinata’s breath is calm, it goes in unison with the faint sounds of a violin and a piano in perfect harmony and the gust of wind rushing over them, closing the book with a thump. “In mine, the Sun Child walks the Earth for as long as it can, adventure after adventure, knowing that its friends look over it even when it can’t see them. In the end, the Sun Child, too, turns into a star right next to the Shadow Child’s star and they are all reunited.”

“Oh.” Kageyama doesn’t remember this sort of ending; but it can’t have possibly ended badly if he used to think of it as a soothing story. Perhaps he was too afraid of never having a good ending so he simply forgot it. It would be too embarrassing to admit, in hindsight. “It does sound nice.”

Hinata giggles and his whole body shakes with him, as always. “Right? It’s a really nice ending. In the end, they are together forever.”

“But stars don’t live forever either, do they?” 

“Nah, Dad said the same. But he also told me that the constellation the two stars are supposed to be in still exists. And it’s a pretty big thing in mythology or something like this. Have you ever been to Kyoto, Kageyama?”

“We’ve been there on tournaments together, you idiot,” Kageyama breathes and looks up to the sky. The stars shine bright now that the sun has gone entirely and the sky is tinted black almost. 

“Oh,” Hinata exclaims and buries his face in the fabric of Kageyama’s shirt. “I kinda forgot. We’ve been to so many places already... “

Kageyama exhales. It’s true. They have travelled a lot together, not just across the country. They have been to championships overseas, even; those journeys are ingrained in Kageyama’s memory if only for the reason that Hinata had been so excited to sit in a plane that he threw up twice right onto Kageyama. Not the most pleasant of all things to recall but at least it was followed by memories to make up for it. Food they have never tasted before, beds that were much harder than their own, landscapes that were so different from what they have ever seen before - and they experienced it together, all of it. They had never once been alone. 

“Kyoto, huh. I actually only remember because I slept through the entire time when we weren’t on court. I haven’t seen any of the city.”

“Me neither,” Hinata buzzes. “Probably why I don’t remember having been there. That was harsh, we had match after match and training in our free time. I barely slept at all…” As if to illustrate, Hinata yawns and nuzzles his cheek onto Kageyama’s shoulder. It’s warm. Hinata always is. “Well, there is this Genbu Shrine in Kyoto, y’know? Dad said the constellation the stars are in shows Genbu.”

“Genbu? What’s that?” Kageyama clutches onto the corner of the duvet covering them and snuggles closer to Hinata after another gust of wind has made him shiver slightly. 

“I don’t know,” Hinata mumbles and shrugs. “I know he told me but I kinda forgot, I guess. I only remember something about a turtle entwined with a snake or something like that.”

“Wasn’t that a chimera?”

“No, that’s the thing in Egypt. Lion body and human head. Seriously, Kageyama, you don’t even know the easiest things. Even my sister knows this.” 

Kageyama is close to smack his elbow right into Hinata’s ribs when he hears Hinata snickering but in that very moment, he nestles closer to Kageyama, lifting his head and grinning. “Don’t be mad, Kageyama-kun. I will tell Natsu to teach you next time she is here.”

“Shut the fuck up, I bet you don’t even know how chimera is spelt,” Kageyama hisses, trying to hide the embarrassment that Hinata actually bested him at something like this. 

“I bet neither do you, don’t try to act all cool!”

Kageyama keeps quiet, raising an eyebrow and squinting at Hinata from the corner of his eyes. Over the years, a lot of things between them have changed - but the part about them nagging each other never did. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed. It’s probably both and none at the same time. He imagines how things would be if they would always agree, and he decides that he likes how they are right now. 

And so does Hinata as Kageyama sees him smiling contentedly. Warm. He’s warm, his presence is warm and it has been ever since they met for the first time. A lot different from what Kageyama had experienced before. They haven’t always gotten along, even nowadays Hinata and him fight so hard that at times there are broken belongings and vile words spit into the other’s face and Kageyama has often feared that perhaps, it isn’t Hinata who is supposed to be his forever but loneliness again. Until now, that hasn’t proved to be true. 

“Next year, right? Next year are the Olympics, Kageyama.” Hinata’s voice sounds distant all of a sudden, as if he was speaking from inside of their apartment. Partially because Kageyama is still deep in his thoughts, partially because he talks in a lower voice than before, almost whispering. The music is audible in the background again, the violin solo part playing again.

“I know.”

“I’m so excited. I want to play there.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Well, we will. We said we would.”

Hinata weighs heavily against his arm, Kageyama can feel it falling asleep and his fingers going somewhat numb from it. He should probably tell Hinata but he hates the cold. He prefers to keep quiet for now. 

“We promised so. I don’t break promises. ...Okay, that was the first time I ever gave someone else a promise but whatever.”

“That’s cute, Kageyama-kun,” Hinata hums next to him and he feels like moving after all but then the other exhales deeply and looks up. Up to the sky where a billion tiny specks of light illuminate their dark, dark background. Kageyama has never seen such a clear sky in his entire life. “But I know you don’t break a promise when you give one. It’s kind of like with that promise the Sun Child and the Shadow Child gave to each other. It might only happen years later but it is still kept. Sort of, at least. I mean as forever as stars can be, probably.”

“Forever, huh. What’s that even mean? Like how long is forever?” Kageyama feels Hinata fidgeting but he calms quickly, returning to his prior position and pressing his cheek against Kageyama’s shoulder. 

“A life time, maybe? As long as you live? But then people believe you can be reborn so maybe two life times. Or three. Or ten? Maybe every life time? I don’t really know. Isn’t that a bit too deep for you to think about, Kageyama?”

“Look who’s talking. Don’t give me that crap.”

Another snicker, piano adding to the sound of the violin in the background, making it sound full and complete and Kageyama wonders still. About forever. And always. Forever seems like a long time. Eternal, maybe. Spending eternity by someone else’s side, it doesn’t sound bad. Kageyama never wants to be alone again, not after he has been overly spoilt with Hinata’s company. He would like Hinata to be his forever, to ban the thought that loneliness might be from his mind. Forever. 

He is startled when Hinata excitedly starts vibrating next to him, tugging at his sleeve. “Kageyama, look! Quick!” 

He points at a shooting star and it is gone as fast as it came. Except there is another star falling just as fast, and another. 

“Sugawara-san mailed me and told me today was going to be a meteor shower! I wanted to see it so badly, so I stayed outside the entire time even though the sun hadn’t even gone down yet! Come on, come on, quick! You gotta close your eyes and wish for something!” Hinata’s voice cracks in between from excitement and the last thing Kageyama sees before he closes his eyes is Hinata doing the same, lids pressed together tightly. 

He can feel Hinata’s fingers burying into his sleeve as he starts wishing upon a shooting star. Or maybe two. Or three. Ridiculous. This is just some superstition. And still, it makes him feel at ease as he thinks about his wish. 

He repeats it three times in his head and opens his eyes slowly. There are still stars falling, Hinata watching them intently. He has calmed down completely, fingers loosely holding onto Kageyama’s shirt anymore, seemingly too fascinated by the phenomenon right before his eyes. 

It is sudden, like a burst, like an explosion almost, of a variety of emotions Kageyama has but cannot explain; it feels like a train has hit him with memories he is sure having never experienced. There has never been a pinky promise in his life, nor poppies to surround him, never a burnt hand nor a letter on a crumbling piece of paper with a feather attached to it, never a little sister of his own with a doll she has always carried with her. It is a second, maybe even less but he feels his insides clenching and his heart beating faster. 

_I want Hinata to be my forever. I want Hinata to be my forever. I want Hinata to be my forever._

His own wish keeps replaying over and over again in his head and when Hinata turns to him, looking at him with big eyes, he doesn’t know what he could possibly answer him.

“Kageyama, are you crying?”

He wants to say no but the words get stuck in his throat, lips shut tightly, tears burning on his cheeks. He prays for Hinata not to ask him why because he wouldn’t be able to explain why he started crying. There is no sadness in him, no frustration, no anger, none of the reasons he usually sheds tears for. All there is is the yearning to feel complete. Forever. 

Kageyama lifts a hand to his face in an attempt to rub the tears away but Hinata is faster. He wipes over Kageyama’s face with the end of the quilt he squeezes in hands with quick motions and it hurts more than it helps. He mumbles ahead but Kageyama can’t understand what he is saying. His own voice still keeps replaying in his ears. 

Forever isn’t a time. It isn’t measured in years or life times. Forever is a person to Kageyama, and that person is Hinata. 

“Don’t cry, you big baby! Your face looks gross when you are snotty,” he exclaims suddenly and Kageyama is inclined to fire back at him but his voice cracks the second he opens his mouth, leaving him breathless. He presses his lips together, tighter than before and Hinata lets his hand sink slowly despite tears still falling, his eyes fixed on Kageyama. 

“Hey, Kageyama.”

The shift in tones isn’t unusual for Hinata. Kageyama is used to Hinata switching from exuberant to serious, from nervous to focused, from awake to sleepy. Hinata is a double-edged sword; and Kageyama is sure Hinata is not remotely aware of it. 

“What was your wish?”

Kageyama’s eyes lock on Hinata’s and the meteor shower seems long forgotten at this point. He has rarely seen anything more expressive about Hinata than his eyes yet right now they are filled with something Kageyama doesn’t recognize. Much like the feelings flowing through him like a current breaking past its dam. 

“A wish won’t be fulfilled if you say it,” Kageyama says, voice still shaking.

“That’s just superstition.”

“So is wishing upon a shooting star.”

“Did you wish for forever?”

Hinata stretches out his pinky finger and pokes the tip of Kageyama’s nose with it. 

“Do you want to promise? You said you don’t break promises, right?”

A pinky promise. There it is again, he feels like he has seen this before. On a night with a starry sky just as today. The feeling from before threatens to overwhelm him again but this time, he manages to gulp it down, no more tears adding to the ones slowly drying.

“I don’t.”

How much louder does his voice have to be until someone hears? How much more does he have to give to be understood? Kageyama remembers asking himself these questions before. He found his voice not even needing to sound with Hinata. 

“Then let’s,” Hinata says and grabs Kageyama’s hand with the one he hasn’t stretched out to him, dropping the quilt. The wind has gone colder but Kageyama barely notices when he curls his pinky finger around Hinata’s. Warm. Of course. Despite the cold, Hinata’s hands are still warm. 

He takes a deep breath before talking, pinky squeezing Kageyama’s. 

“Back in high school, I always wanted us to be in different teams so we would have a chance at playing against each other. But the closer graduation was, the more anxious I became when I figured we might be scouted by different teams. I realized I really wanted to play alongside you rather than against you. Rather your teammate than your rival. ….Though rival sounds a lot cooler,” he giggles. It’s true; rival does sound a lot cooler but Kageyama prefers calling Hinata teammate any day. 

“Ever since we met, we have always been together. And I only really figured this out when there was the chance of us not hanging out anymore. Maybe even living in different cities. Or countries, even. I didn’t want that. None of it. In order to get scouted by the same team as you, I worked even harder than before. I meant to catch up to you anyway but that was even more of a reason, you see.”

Kageyama knows that. He remembers it. Hinata has always tried to keep up with him and with the time, they weren’t much apart any longer. He can still taste the pride of that realization on his tongue. Especially when they were both approached and asked to play in the same team. Perhaps it was more than just pride, he sees now. It was him desperately clinging to the one person who fully understood him even when he didn’t. Even when others thought Hinata didn’t but he always knew how Kageyama processed even the smallest things. So he followed. 

“So I’m glad this is how it is now. I know we fight a lot. I know we bicker a lot. Sometimes I really want to punch you,” and it is odd how much Kageyama shares this sentiment, his hand twitching so hard sometimes to smack Hinata a good one for one or two or ten dumb comments of his. “But that doesn’t change the fact that there is no place I’d rather be. If I were given the choice, I would always want to have a place by your side.”

Hinata averts his eyes and Kageyama can only guess he is blushing from the faint light from the bedroom. Along with Hinata’s breathing, quietly and softly, a song called Forever is still playing in the background but Kageyama doesn’t pay attention which part of it it is. 

“My wish upon that shooting star was to be with you forever. The two of us. I used to hate being called a set with you but now…” Hinata looks back up again, and he wears a smile as warm as his hands always, always are, “...I really like the sound of that. So I promise I will be by your side, forever. ….That’s… so cheesy,” he breathes, his pinky fingers almost strangling Kageyama’s and hiding his face in his free hand. “I really really want that…”

Kageyama guesses there are no shooting stars anymore but it doesn’t matter any longer. A promise weighs more than a wish does and he feels like he remembers why the Sun Child’s story influenced him as much. He wanted this. A promise of forever. Ever since he was younger, he never felt complete. Like there was a piece missing. To that missing piece, he remembers, he wanted to promise forever. He almost lost hope for it but the piece found him. 

“Yeah,” Kageyama replies, voice soft, “I want that too… So I’ll promise to stick with you too. For as long as forever is, I don’t really care. You’ll be my forever and I’ll be yours.”

“That’s even worse than what I said and you managed that in not even a quarter of my words. That’s amazing,” Hinata says, honest awe in his voice. 

“Shut up, you dumbass. Yours were a thousand times more embarrassing than mine.” Kageyama isn’t flustered in the least, he doesn’t feel his cheeks growing hot nor his hands going sweaty. In any other occasion, he might have felt taken aback but this is Hinata. The same Hinata who teases him for not being a morning person and tripping over his words when he is nervous. That has most definitely never changed. 

Hinata leans back, laughing and nestles against Kageyama’s arm again without ever letting go of Kageyama’s pinky finger. “No way, you were totally more cornier than me. I bet that was from one of those dramas you always watch secretly. Don’t think you are the only one recording things.”

“That’s just because my mum keeps pestering me about it, okay? She is watching it and just because I happened to see one episode, she thinks I am following it and asks me every week about it. Would be rude to tell her off.” Kageyama sniffs, tears still sticking to his face. He feels overwhelmed, his heart is so full of emotions that he can barely contain them - but it is infinitely a better feeling than what it used to be like. 

“Oh, come on! Just admit it already, you do kind of enjoy that! You’re a sap at heart, Kageyama-kun.”

“...I might be,” he replies and glances over to Hinata whose laugh stops right when he meets Kageyama’s eyes, only to be replaced by a mild smile. 

“Tobio, the sap. I like the sound of that.”

“If I’m a sap, what are you? A dumbass?”

“Rude, sap at least sounds cute! We could write a story about us, Tobio the sap and Shouyou the super cool hero!”

Kageyama clicks his tongue. “Honestly? It could just be Tobio and Shouyou.”

“Hmmm,” Hinata hums as he contemplates. He seems discontent at first but squeezes Kageyama’s pinky. “That sounds nice, actually. And since you’re so sappy, it will probably have an ending like ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’”

Hinata chuckles but Kageyama chooses not reply. Happily ever after - Kageyama would like that type of ending by Hinata’s side, in this life and maybe even in another. He listens to Hinata ramble for a little longer until he slowly falls asleep, pressed against Kageyama. Trying not to move too much, Kageyama throws the quilt over the two of them and snuggles closer to Hinata. He listens to Hinata breathing faintly, still in harmony with a violin and a piano, still emitting a warmth that fills Kageyama up, that makes him feel complete and like home more than anything else has ever done so. 

The sixth time they meet, they are Tobio Kageyama and Shouyou Hinata, they are teammates after years still; have been in high school, are still after graduation. They live together and fight with each other, they sleep together but don’t cook together as it turns out a disaster. They laugh together and cry, rarely, they say but it happens even while watching a bad drama on TV. They travel together and see the world, never apart from each other. 

Because forever is what they promised, ages ago in another life, and renewed every time, they have promised it another time for that it might end with all happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, some foot notes before i will get real sappy too:  
> the reference of the genbu shrine and genbu in general is based on a constellation called black turtoise in the chinese astrology; genbu is the japanese name for the black turtoise normally depicted as a turtle with a snake attached to its shell. it is said to symbolize longevivity - fitting for forever, isn't it?in western astrology, it would be the constellation equuleus, though it consists of more than two stars, of course.  
> and, i do actually know that the "thing in egypt" as hinata has called it is actually a sphinx and not a chimera but what does hinata know. he should take some lessons from his younger sister too!
> 
> wonderful [fish](http://talk-to-the-fish.tumblr.com/) has surprised me another time with a [very very very very gorgeous and lovely illustration of this chapter](http://talk-to-the-fish.tumblr.com/post/103109212041/forever-and-always-ended-yesterday-and-fish-may-or) and i am most definitely and absolutely not crying (hint: i am bawling)
> 
> if you want to know how a possible doujin cover for this fic would look like [please take a look at this.](https://twitter.com/anfu_x/status/583406915377594368) unfortunately not real because it was an april's fools of [anfu](https://twitter.com/anfu_x) for me bUT STILL EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL!! 
> 
> [another wonderful artwork featuring all kageyamas and hinatas that appeared during this fic](http://doodledrops.tumblr.com/post/117236381313/read-forever-and-always-by-talonyth-and-had-too) was drawn by [doodledrops on tumblr](http://http://doodledrops.tumblr.com/) and i am really amazed, still, it's so detailed and just as i imagined them!!! 
> 
> ahhh, any other questions i will cover in my comments if there are any as this is probably really messy. it's 3am and i really wanted to get this done or i wouldn't have been able to sleep so i'm sorry for any confusion or grammar mistakes you might have found. 
> 
> and here we go, so this has been the last part of this fic and it was a pleasure to write it. it has allowed me to think of many possibilities to depict hinata and kageyama's relationship and to focus on certain aspects of them even in other lives. i actually had the most trouble writing them in "canonverse" in the last chapter as i am always afraid of messing up characterizations and relationships. i hope you enjoyed it and that this hasn't disappointed you in the very end. thank you all eternally for your support and for even reading this!

**Author's Note:**

> yeah another series hA;;;; i probably should stop at some point. i also should probably be feeling sorry for this becauseno one needs kagehinas dying. no one needs it but i'll dump it onto you anyway because i'm too thirsty for reincarnation aus. 
> 
> have fun friends, this will be a wonderful ride of multiple chapters saying forever.


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